Revisiting the performance of Uganda’s road sector

That was the plan. But the reality has been an entirely different story.
Since then, Mr Mubangizi’s company has had to pay millions for miscellaneous bills it had not anticipated. For instance, he had to remodel the new buses to suit the roads they are operating on and pay for almost incessant repairs.

According to Emmanuel Muhwezi Mukiga, the general manager for maintenance at Perfect Coach, they carry out repairs on each of the buses each time it makes a trip from Kampala to one of the rural destinations in western Uganda. The buses ply the Kampala-Ntungamo-Rukungiri routes, with detours to the more rustic Kabwohe/Kikagata/Kabira, Ishaka/Mitooma/Kashenshero, and Kambuga areas.

“Most of the roads have a lot of black spots,” said Mr Muhwezi. “The buses are breaking springs every now and then and the body itself; the buses come with dents every time the road is slippery. The tyres are getting worn- out every now and then. It would be four months but because the roads are rough, especially in the villages, we replace them every three months.”
Mr Muhwezi explained that since the six buses were purchased, they have changed all their bus hang lines (frames) from the two millimetre square pipes that they came with to four millimetre square pipes due to constant breakages.

Mr Muhwezi said the bad roads also affect the vehicle wiring system brakes and tyres. “Because of the many pot holes, you brake every 100 metres. As a result, the break drums get worn-out and it results in high temperatures that can result in the tyres bursting,” he said.

Officials at Perfect Coach say they spend at least Shs1.4 million per day on repairing eight buses and Shs1.45 million for each Michelin tyre.
Like the Perfect Coach proprietor, nearly every motorist or vehicle owner in Uganda spends a substantial amount of money on the vehicle repairs occasioned by the state of the country’s roads.

While no study is known to have been undertaken to aggregate the cost of bad roads on motorists, Works and Transport Minister John Nasasira recently estimated that road accidents alone – caused by bad roads or otherwise – cost Uganda about 2.7 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in terms of lives, injury, as well as loss of vehicle and other property.

Uganda’s GDP, meaning the value of goods and services produced within the country, was estimated to be $15.8 billion (about Shs31 trillion) in 2009.
The above factor and the fact that road transport accounts for over 90 per cent of Uganda’s passenger and cargo traffic are two of the leading reasons why, while campaigning for the presidency in 2005/06, President Museveni made the rehabilitation of Uganda’s road sector one of the key items of his manifesto. In his 2006 manifesto, President Museveni noted that, “The NRM government will make major investments in the transport sector that will cover upgrading and tarmacking of national roads connecting each district headquarter to the capital with a tarmac road.”

President Museveni lists, in his manifesto, 21 national roads that he promised his government would upgrade to tarmac or reconstruct during his five-year term of office. The roads measure a total of 2,253 kilometres.
President Museveni also promised to upgrade over 5,000 kilometres of district roads to national road status, implement the Greater Kampala Transport Master plan and decongest vehicular traffic in the city, as well as construct over 30 bridges, including the design of a new bridge across the Nile in Jinja District.

To achieve this, the NRM government made the roads sector one of the recipients of the biggest chunks of the national budget over the last financial years. It also established the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) in July 2008 with the mandate of developing and revamping some 20,000 kilometres of the national road network and 10,000 of district roads.

Within the last two financial years alone, the government allocated to the roads sector Shs2 trillion in an economy that has spent an average of Shs5.7 trillion per year over the last four financial years.
So, as Uganda prepares to embark on the last financial year of the NRM government’s five-year term, what has been the out turn of the trillions spent on roads in the last four years?

Classification of roads
Roads in Uganda, says Mr David Luyimbazi, the director of planning at UNRA, fall under four categories. The first are national roads, which total 10,500 – of which 3,000 kilometres is tarmac and 7,500 kilometres is gravel. UNRA is responsible for the development and maintenance of these roads.

“As part of the reforms in the road sector, the Ministry of Works and Transport is increasing the size of the National Road Network from 10,500 kilometres to approximately 20,000 kilometres by taking over 10,000 kilometres from the District Road Network. UNRA will develop these upgraded roads to National Roads Standard in a 3–4 year time frame with effect from FY ‘09/10,” explained Mr Luyimbazi.

The second category is the district roads. This network comprised of 27,500 kilometres until 10,000 kilometres were handed over to UNRA. The development and maintenance of this network is the responsibility of district local governments, under the supervision and guidance of the Works ministry.

Urban roads are the third category. They are 4,800 kilometres in total, with 650 kilometres of it already upgraded to tarmac and the rest either gravel or earth. Statistics indicate that Kampala City Council manages 900 kilometres (350 kilometres tarmac), while the rest are under the 12 Municipalities and 97 Urban Council across the country.

Community roads on the other hand are 35,000 kilometres in total and are the responsibility of Sub-county authorities. These roads hardly get any budget from the consolidated fund, explaining why they are usually in poor condition.

National roads
Over the last four years, at least 70 per cent of the budget allocated to the Ministry of Works and Transport was meant for the development of national roads. In the last two years, when UNRA took over that role, the allocation rose to 85 per cent, giving the roads body Shs1.58 trillion over that period.

UNRA Spokesman, Dan Alinange, says over the last two years that the roads body has been in existence, they have placed emphasis on completing ongoing projects and starting new projects that had ready designs but lacked funding. UNRA also embarked on new projects.

The only two roads that Mr Alinange says were completed last year are the Jinja-Bugiri (73km) road and the Kampala Northern Bypass (21km). However, construction of both roads started before 2006.

According to Mr Alinange, there are currently more than 1,500 kilometres of roads under major rehabilitation and construction but are yet to be completed. The majority of these are the roads President Museveni promised to construct during his current term of office. (See table 1)
Mr Alinange said in the 2010/11 financial year that starts in June, rehabilitation and upgrade to tarmac of over 1000km of roads will commence. These include roads like: Mbarara–Kikagati (70km), Nyakahita– Ibanda–Kamwenge (150km), Gulu–Atiak–Bibia-Nimule (104km), Vurra–Arua– Koboko–Oraba (92km), Atiak–Moyo–Afoji (103 km), Malaba/Busia–Bugiri (82km), Mukono–Jinja (85km), Mukono–Kayunga (69km), Kafu–Karuma– Kamudini (88km), Jinja–Kamuli (69km) and Tororo–Mbale–Soroti (156km).

UNRA officials argue that a number of problems have affected the speed at which the roads have been constructed and rehabilitated. He said one of those problems is the poor performance of contractors.

“Our construction industry is still very young having undergone decades of stunted development, disorganisation and loss of capacity,” he said.
“Mainly because of the limited work experience, equipment capability and financial strength, local contractors are usually unable to meet eligibility criteria for the relatively complex development projects.
Mr Alinange adds that only a few of them are even able to satisfactorily and sustainably operate as sub-contractors for other international construction firms.

Even for international firms, he said, they often require long mobilisation periods to move equipment into the country, which contributes to the slow pace of project implementation and conclusion.

“The contractors are given on average three months to mobilise equipment. An example is the contractor for the tarmacking of Fort Portal – Bundibugyo road. We had to give the company three months for mobilisation but the funds for this project are on our accounts. Actual physical works will start in April,” he said.

Another problem, according to Mr Luyimbazi, stems from the procurement rules. He said when bidders challenge procurement processes, this normally brings work to a halt as they consider the merits of the challenge.
“We have about five road projects which are facing procurement challenges and the total commitment we would have made is about Shs250 billion. If we are unable to spend that, it means service delivery is delayed, the money cannot be absorbed and the roads are getting worse – and yet the challenge of the process is within the law, he said.

Naming the road projects whose contracts have been challenged as the Bugiri-Malaba overlay, Mukono-Kayunga and Kayunga-Njeru rehabilitation, Tororo-Mbale and Mbale-Soroti rehabilitation projects, Mr Luyimbazi said: “I think the ongoing review of the PPDA Act is our best chance to ensure that the law facilitates government’s ability to provide services rather than constrain it. Whereas transparency and accountability is important, it should not stand in the way of service delivery.”

District, urban roads
Officials say road maintenance for district and urban roads is funded to the tune of 30 per cent from the national budget, while the local governments are expected to raise the remaining 70 per cent.
With districts and urban councils unable to generate the revenue required to maintain the roads, many of them have been left to rot away. This largely explains why roads in Kampala and other municipalities are dilapidated.

Finance State Minister in charge of General Duties, Fred Jachan Omach, says part of the problem is that there are few regional mechanical workshops for repair of road equipments.

“Accordingly, Local Governments spend a lot of money and time to transport the equipment. For example Nakapiripirit to Jinja or Gulu, Kisoro to Mbarara. Secondly, the equipments take long to be repaired,” explained Mr Omach at the National Budget Consultative Workshop in February [2010].
Finance Minister Syda Bbumba says even though their roads are dilapidated, districts and urban areas have failed to absorb the money allocated to them.

“Expenditure analysis of the two groups of outputs shows that less than half of the funds released were absorbed across both groups of outputs, which suggests that spending constraints were experienced across the entire sector by roughly equal proportion,” she said in an analysis of the half year budget performance report for 2009/10. “Moreover, the rate of expenditure on consumption was higher than for the investment by 8 percentage points, suggesting the sector found it easy to spend on consumption compared to investment.”

The biggest outcry over urban roads has been in Kampala, where Mayor Sebaggala made a series of ambitious promises when he took up office in 2006. In a booklet outlining the “strategic goals” he planned to achieve while in office, Mr Sebaggala said he would revamp the KCC roads department by June 2007, tarmac 50 per cent of all feeder roads in the city by December 2010, and establish cyclist lanes in 50 per cent of the roads by June 2007.

However, Kampala has instead degenerated into such a vast plethora of pot holes that driving is a nightmare for most motorists, never mind that billions were sunk into the city roads during preparations for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (Chogm) held in November 2007. Reviewing his performance in a recent interview with Daily Monitor, Mr Ssebagala said KCC was not generating enough capital but his administration has now increased the revenue collected by at least 30 per cent during his term.

Future Outlook
Speaking at the National Budget Strategy Meeting for the 2010/11 financial year on February 26, Finance Minister Syda Bbumba conceded that Uganda’s road infrastructure “is still rated as poor hence slowing down economic activities.”

“The road network is dilapidated in most parts of the country, making a number of places inaccessible. This therefore requires an additional effort to increase on routine maintenance and enhance road development projects,” she said.

“It is recognised that in some instances, road works and other physical infrastructure development financed by the government have had questionable value for money. The causes for low value-for-money for roads and other civil works include the use of poor and unqualified contractors, low level of supervision, overloading a single contractor with many contracts at the same time, corruption and a combination of all these factors.

“While the government will verify value-for-money through audit of road works, it will address the prime causes of shoddy works, which leads to poor value-for-money,” added Ms Bbumba.

With the government running behind on its plans for the last four years, it would need to plug many of the loopholes whose existence it already seems to be aware of before the targets are achieved.