KCCA boss questions contractor

The Executive Director of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Ms Dorothy Kisaka, has expressed her dissatisfaction with a contractor for the slow construction of traffic signals at various city junctions.

Ms Kisaka, who was accompanied by her deputy, Mr David Luyimbazi, and other KCCA staff, said she was disappointed by Konoike Construction, a Japanese company contracted to upgrade selected city junctions with traffic signals.

Going forward, she tasked the contractor to workday and night so as to complete the works.
“I’m not satisfied with the progress of this work. It is taking too long. We need results. We have discovered that they are not working at night so, we are saying let us work out a plan and start working at night. We can provide security,” she said while inspecting works at Mulago and Kubiri roundabouts at the weekend.

According to KCCA, Konoike was contracted to signalise 27 junctions and also remove five roundabouts at a total cost of about Shs78b.

The roundabouts are Mulago, Rwenzori Courts, Grand Imperial, Mulago Mortuary, and Kubiri.

She demanded to know why the company was not speeding up the work yet it had already received 50 percent of the funds meant for signalisation of junctions.

She noted that although the construction works at the traffic control centre being undertaken by the same Kampala at City Hall were going well, the contractor needed to expedite works being undertaken at selected city junctions.

Ms Kisaka revealed that the same company was contracted to construct a Shs63b traffic control tower at KCCA headquarters, and that work was going well.

She said the two projects are supported by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and aim at addressing the traffic jam in the city.

Mr Tetsuro Izawa, the chief consultant from Oriental Consultant Global, who spoke on behalf of the contractor, partly blamed the delays on the long process of relocating underground fiber cables, and disruptions from the rainy weather and traffic jam.

He, however, said the team would do what it takes to ensure that the work is done within the time frame agreed upon.  According to Mr Izawa, the project in question commenced in 2022 and is expected to be complete by October this year.

According to the World Bank study of 2017, traffic jams were costing Uganda more than $800m (Shs2.8 trillion) in lost domestic product with a daily loss of 24,000 person-hours in Kampala alone.