KCCA starts patching up potholes in city divisions
KCCA executive director Dorothy Kisaka inspects works on Salama road in Kampala on January 4, 2023. PHOTO/ABUBAKER LUBOWA
What you need to know:
- Some of roads to be rehabilitated include Salama, Sir Apollo Kaggwa, Katwe, Port bell and others in industrial area.
Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has embarked on an emergency patchwork to rehabilitate most of the city’s roads to ensure easy traffic mobility ahead of the wholesome construction slated to commence this year.
According to the KCCA Executive Director, Ms Dorothy Kisaka, the patchwork activities are meant to ensure that the roads are motorable in the meantime.
“The KCCA maintenance team has started doing sectional repairs on the potholes as we wait for the overall construction. We have identified all the potholes in the city and they will all be patched to ease the mobility of our people” Ms Kisaka said yesterday while launching the roadworks.
She added: “Many people have been asking why we leave our roads to reach such a sorry state. But inadequate resources are still challenging the authority’s performance. This financial year, we were given only Shs10b for road and drainage rehabilitation, we are still lobbying so as to get more money to enable us to keep regular maintenance of the roads.”
Last year, Monitor published stories exposing the sorry state of roads in the city.
Ms Kisaka said many of the roads in a sorry state are already listed among those to be constructed under the Shs1 trillion project funded by African Development Bank that will commence in the next month.
“We have already received $288m (Shs1 trillion) to construct 69km of roads. The roads are going to be wider with drainage, walkways and street lights,” Ms Kisaka said.
“All the roads to be constructed are going to be modern which we believe will last for 15-20 years. The good examples of such roads are those that were constructed under the KIDIP 2 project such as Stretcher Road, Kulambiro Road and Kabusu-Bunamwaya road,” she added.
The KCCA boss also dismissed allegations that the potholes are being patched with soil, saying the material used is a mixer of murram and stone base.
She added that the authority is working with other agencies such as National Water because most of the potholes are caused by water piping.
The Kampala Lord Mayor, Mr Erias Lukwago, however, decried the inflated costs in the construction of 69km at Shs1 trillion, saying the government should investigate the project before it commences. “If 69km of roads are going to be constructed at Shs1 trillion, it means each kilometre is to be constructed at a whopping of Shs14.4b, this is impossible and obscene. Unfortunately, when we raised the matter to the IGG [Inspector General of Government] no step was taken,” Mr Lukwago said.
