Prime
Museveni: Govt will fund reconstruction of Lira-Kamdini road, not World Bank
President Museveni addresses the leaders of Lango at Alidi Primary School in Oyam District on January 22, 2022. PHOTO/ CHARITY AKULLO
What you need to know:
- NERAMP is the country’s first longest road project that has been awarded to a Portuguese firm, Mota-Engil Africa. The 340km stretch covers Tororo-Mbale-Soroti-Dokolo-Lira-Kamdini road.
President Museveni has announced that his administration will fund the reconstruction of Lira-Kamdini road, following technical delays by the co-funder, the World Bank.
The development comes after a section of Members of Parliament from Lango Sub-region threatened to protest over the sorry state of the road. The peaceful demonstration had been planned for Saturday, January 22.
“Yesterday (Friday), I was arrested by some Members of Parliament from Lango when I was in Kololo launching something on tourism. These MPs invaded me there, and they said you must come to Lango tomorrow (Saturday),” he said, adding that he was so surprised that the issues of Lira-Kamdini road had not yet been sorted out.
The Lira-Kamdini road is included in the North Eastern Road Corridor Asset Management Project (NERAMP), as part of the Lot 2 section: Soroti-Lira-Kamdini financed by the World Bank and the government of Uganda.
Mr Museveni blamed the delayed resumption of Lira-Kamdini road construction works on so many players involved in the project.
“I decided that this section of the road [measuring] 78 Kms, I am now going to pull it out of the World Bank project and fund it. We are going to fund it like we did with Kamwenge –Fort Portal road,” Mr Museveni said while meeting the leaders of Lango Sub-region at Alidi Primary School, Loro Sub-county in Oyam District on Saturday.
The President also directed the country’s road agency- the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) – to take pictures of the deteriorating Lira-Kamdini road network and share them with the World Bank.
Mr Museveni believes the pictures of the poor road which has claimed scores of lives and frustrated business in the area will make the World Bank understand that his administration did not kick it out of the road project in bad faith.
A section of the deteriorating Lira-Kamdini road
Last week, Unra indicated that the works on the road await clearance safeguards documents from the World Bank, which is co-financing the project with Kampala.
“Being a World Bank financed project, compliance to environmental and social safeguard requirements is key. No activity can take place without the World Bank’s clearance of environmental and social safeguards,” Unra indicated in a statement last Friday.
“When approval of the pending environmental and social safeguard documentation, including the road environmental and social impact assessment for the source of aggregates is secured, priority will be given to the Lira-Kamdini road and works will start immediately,” the statement added.
Mr Museveni said much as there are challenges currently being faced by the people of Lango, his National Resistance Movement (NRM) government cares about the sub region.
About the project
NERAMP is the country’s first longest road project that has been awarded to a Portuguese firm, Mota-Engil Africa. The 340km stretch covers Tororo-Mbale-Soroti-Dokolo-Lira-Kamdini road. The project that is funded by the World Bank has strict environment and social safeguards requirements. The overall construction is supposed to last 36 months. The contract was signed on June 28, 2018 and the project implementation started on August 13, 2018. The legal site possession was done on February 28, 2019 for Lot 1, and March 1, 2019 for Lot 2. The expected completion date was February 12, 2027.
