Flyover: Fuel station proprietor seeks Shs1.5b over lost business

The owners of Total Clock Tower are seeking Shs1.5b as compensation for losses suffered over two years due to the lack of business brought about by the construction of the Kampala Flyover project.

Works on the project commenced in December 2018, with the completion of the first phase expected to be done by March 2023. 

However, the construction of the Shs224 billion project, which includes the flyover, the attached roads, improved and widened drainage system as well as pedestrian walkways, has affected several businesses in its wake.  

 “Our client is the holder of a dealership licence for the operation of a fuel station known as Total Clock Tower Service Station. The station is located along the Nsambya-Gaba Road and has been in existence for over 50 years,” a December 6 letter from the fuel station’s lawyers to Shimizu-Konoike Joint Venture, the Japanese firm constructing the flyover, reads in part.

“Sometime in 2020, your company commenced construction of the Kampala Flyover and Roads Upgrade project which partly runs along the Nsambya Ggaba Road. Unfortunately, the project has adversely affected our client’s operation of the service station from May 2020 until June 2022 when he was forced to completely shut down operations,” the letter adds

It further states: “Consequently, our client has suffered financial loss for which he holds your organisation entirely liable. We are now instructed to demand as we hereby do Shs1.5 billion which is the loss suffered so far.”

Mr Allan Kiggundu, the proprietor of the fuel station, said the plan designed and approved by Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) showed that during the division of roads, an exit and entrance, as well as signposts showing the company’s business would be provided by the site engineers. He was, however, provided with the entrance only a few months back but it is always blocked by the contractor’s materials or flooded.

“We have tried to work hand in hand with them to see whether there is a possibility of creating an exit for us because we have clients who have big trucks which can’t turn in small areas. And due to safety issues this is not possible,” Mr Kiggundu told Daily Monitor last week. The fuel station also houses a restaurant and supermarket as well as a washing bay and tyre clinic but due to the ongoing works, sales have dropped by more than 80 percent.

“In that profit margin, we cannot pay back loans which we got from Centenary Bank (Shs50m) and Equity Bank (Shs100m),” he said, urging Unra executive director, Ms Allen Kagina, to intervene so that his company is enabled to restructure the loans.

But Unra’s head of bridges and structures, Mr Lawrence Pario, urged Mr Kiggundu to ‘pursue the business loss with Shimizu-Konoike’.

“Reference is made to your letter dated November 11, in which you complain of business loss…. We have reviewed your complaint and communicated the same to the contractor who should have provided access to enable your business to operate normally but they did not,” Mr Pario writes in a December 5 letter to Mr Kiggundu.

Efforts to get a comment from Mr Oshima Tomuyuki, the project manager, were futile by press time as he was yet to respond to queries sent to his official email address.

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