Prime
Gov't sets fresh deadline for new Katonga Bridge
The Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Thomas Tayebwa (second left) asks about the Mpigi Express Highway design in Mpigi District on November 7, 2023 as Unra boss Allen Kagina looks on. PHOTO/DAVID LUBOWA
Against a backdrop of missed completion dates, government yesterday committed to deliver a more robust and completely new bridge at Katonga on Kampala-Masaka highway in one year.
In a revelation made last evening by the Deputy Speaker of Parliament, Mr Thomas Tayebwa, the executive director at the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra), Ms Allen Kagina is also quoted saying the new bridge will be resistant to extreme weather and flood-safe.
“A permanent bridge is going to come as soon as we open for the new steel bridge, the contractor will start on that and it will take 12 months to construct,” Ms Kagina revealed during a site inspection.
Highlighting the importance of the bridge on the main access route to western Uganda and neighbouring countries, including Rwanda, DR Congo and Burundi, the site inspection drew a host of Unra technocrats, MPs on the House Physical infrastructure and National Economy committees alongside Mr Tayebwa.
The revelation comes two months after Unra top brass announced other government interventions on the route which was cut off when flood waters destroyed the old bridge. Ms Kagina said then that, “we are going to do a completely new bridge and then do several culverts over a distance of 11 km, starting from Kalandazi through Lwera”.
Last May, the Katonga Bridge collapsed, interrupting heavy passenger and cargo traffic along the critical highway and leading to a steep rise in transport costs. At the time, the government made several, as yet unmet, promises about getting a new bridge in place within months.
Mr Tayebwa appeared happy with ongoing works, saying, “what we have seen so far is impressive and they have promised us that in around three-weeks, the [temporary] bridge is going to be fully open and within one year it will be completed”.
The deputy speaker used the same inspection tour to check progress on the equally vital Mpigi-Busega Expressway. Funding for the southern expressway was secured in 2016 but works remain unfinished.
“We expected that this road would be completed in around 2021. And now it is 2023, we are seeing the progress is extremely slow,” Mr Tayebwa said, adding that, “The issue is that we are way behind schedule and we have been told that it will come with cost implications”.
An immediate meeting was convened late last evening to engage the Chinese-run firm building the road to find answers to project delays. It emerged that the contractor would require another 48 months to deliver on the expressway.
