Unra bows to pressure, removes poor quality Masaka streetlights

The Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) has bowed to pressure from Masaka City authorities and removed the newly installed streetlights on Broadway Road.

The development comes barely a month after Masaka City Mayor Florence Namayanja halted the installation of the solar lights on the newly constructed road, saying “motorists and residents had complained about their poor quality.”

On Tuesday, the resident Masaka Unra Engineer Stephen Kizza said the issue of the lights is being handled by the contractor burt declined to divulge details.

“The contractor is doing his work and is also still on the ground to manage all other issues that may arise out of his contract,” he said in a telephone interview.

In 2020, Unra contracted Chongqing International Construction Corporation (CICO) to work on the road at a cost of Shs35b.

An insider in the Masaka Unra office intimated to Monitor that after a joint inspection of the works, Unra engineers and the contractor deemed it fit to remove the contested solar lamps and replace them with new ones.

Namayanja claims that though the lights were supposed to be 50 watts but the contractor instead installed lamps of 20 watts which are said to be below the required standards.

On Monday, the mayor noted that her efforts had yielded positive results adding that a case she reported to police is also in advanced stages.

“I will make the police investigation report about the matter public as soon as possible,” she highlighted.

Background

In a letter dated March 7, Namayanja wrote to Masaka District Police Commander (DPC) Hussein Mugarura asking him to intervene and investigate the matter.

Eng Kizza had earlier dismissed claims that the solar lamps are of poor quality, insisting that the contractor considered the actual specifications as per the contract.

“No contractual obligation was flouted as claimed by the mayor. The challenge would be on the spacing of the solar lamp poles but of course, you can’t blame that on the contractor because the resources we had could only do that,” he said then

Kizza explained further that they had only 195 light lamps for the 7.3km stretch- and to cover this distance, they had to put lamps in a 70-75m spacing.

“The light [brightness] from the lamps has been improving gradually. By the time we installed the first batch of light poles, the batteries were at about 20 per cent charged and we told her [mayor] to give it time so that the batteries charge to full capacity and produce quality light,” he added.