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Roads decay: More trillions but the limping goes on
A collapsed Mitaano Bridge on River Mirera in Kanungu District. President Museveni once said most of the roads are in a bad state due to poor planning and lack of proper use of the scarce resources. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
The Uganda National Roads Authority is requesting for more funds to make a difference but legislators blame its poor performance on corruption.
With a new minister in charge and over a trillion going to the roads sector each financial year- the largest funding to a single sector, the government appears to have failed to deliver quality roads and other public works.
Various parts of the country particularly in north eastern Uganda have become inaccessible.
A section of politicians, including Speaker of Parliament Rebecca Kadaga have vowed to lead peaceful protests over poor roads in their areas.
Some MPs from Karamoja have accused the government of ignoring the plight of their people in time of need while others threatened to walk naked unless something is done to repair their roads.
But to address the most pressing development challenge at the moment, the government allocated Shs1.1 trillion to the roads sector in 2008/09 financial year.
This funding has been consistent but legislators say although some roads have been worked on, the potholes have increased in their constituencies.
According to Uganda Road Sector Support Initiative, an NGO, though inadequate resources were the most significant hindrance about four years ago, it was not the only problem the sector had to deal with.
Policy considerations and questions were bound to arise as to whether Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) had the capacity to absorb the allocated funds and deliver the best job worth the money.
There were news headlines that the organisation was stuck with more than Shs300 billion as the state of roads deteriorated.
This problem has since been solved but new challenges have emerged - inadequate funding.
In spite of the creation of a technical monitoring unit at State House possibly to check on the leakages in the sector, roads projects remain plagued by fraud, corruption and collusion in contracts.
The President has on several occasions publically complained about the rampant corruption in the sector.
Although Ugandans have been made to believe that roads sector is taking a lot of money, Saturday Monitor investigations into why roads in the country continue to rot away despite increased funding revealed diversion of funds meant for UNRA and evidence of interference in the handling of Roads Fund.
The Road Fund was created to finance road maintenance projects.
However, Ministry of Finance has been diverting roads money to non-priority areas.
This newspaper found evidence where Ministry of Finance diverted more than Shs20 billion meant for maintenance of roads in various parts of the country.
While it is not clear where they took this money, UNRA boss Peter Ssebanakitta told Public Accounts Committee (PAC)last week that the 20,000 kilometres of national roads will not be worked on because there is no money.
“Our hands are tied, for example, in the fourth quarter, we were supposed to get Shs67 billion but this money was cut by Shs20 billion yet they have doubled our responsibility,” Eng Ssebanakitta said
He added: “Initially, UNRA was supposed to look after 10,000 kilometres of national roads but another 10,000 kilometres were added without additional funds.”
Mr Ssebanakitta’s cranky performance before the hard-nosed PAC is the latest answer to President Museveni queries on why most of the roads in the countryside are in such a sorry state despite government allocation of Shs1.2 trillion in the budget for road repairs.
In February this year, President Museveni wrote to Prime Minister Amama Mbabazi demanding an explanation on why some roads in the countryside were in a sorry state even after the government provided Shs1.2 trillion in the budget.
President’s findings
In a six-page letter, the President complained about the mismanagement of murram roads.
The President said on February 3 that he deliberately and without warning decided to drive 1,000 kilometre on road instead of using helicopters or fixed wing planes.
Mr Museveni concluded his letter by saying: “It seems the main problems are poor planning, lack of proper use of scarce resources, lack of supervision and banishment of corruption.”
On lack of supervision, PAC heard that because of inadequate staff, one UNRA engineer is supervising more than 10 projects.
To date, UNRA has 988 employees instead of the required 1,500.
The organisation lacks materials, specialist, a bridge engineer and a highway specialist.
While a kilometre costs between Shs35 million and 40 million, Eng. Ssebanakitta said the government provided only Shs50 billion to work on 10,000 kilometres formerly under the local governments.
This means that each kilometer will cost Shs5 million, a figure which is far below the required cost.
This year, UNRA received a total of Shs180 billion but Eng. Ssebanakitta says he needs Shs450 billion to work on the bad roads.
“We cannot accept shoddy works because the government wants to be seen doing something about the bad roads in the country,” Jacob Opolot (Pallisa MP) said. “It is costly to do substandard work because you want to cover a large area.”
Reductions in the road maintenance budget will increase the burden on taxpayers and motorists will pay more for repairs since essential works will not be carried out on most of the potholed roads in the country.
Lack of adequate funds for road maintenance means that the prospect of badly- maintained roads causing a spike in damage to cars will alarm motorists who are already concerned about shelling out more money for car insurance cover.
PAC chairperson Kassiano Wadri said, MPs were concerned about the counter-productiveness of short-term budget cutting and allegations of corruption in the sector.
He said it could cost more in the end due to more vehicle damage and greater costs of repairing the worst damage on the roads.
“Bad roads cost us dearly. Drivers have collided on roads as they try to dodge giant potholes, causing unnecessary death to innocent Ugandans, Mr Kassiano said;
While the roads authority officials have denied any wrong doing, some legislators have attributed the problem to corruption in the sector.
Ntenjeru South MP Patrick Nsanja said a recent Transparency International poll ranked construction industry the most prone to corruption.
A survey of international firms revealed that companies in the construction industry were more likely than firms in any other sector to have lost a contract because of bribery.
The cost of bad roads to the economy is also immeasurable – especially if policy makers consider the time it takes for traders to move their commodities to markets across the country.
For instance, a journey from Soroti to Moroto that should have taken less than 5 hours takes 12 hours which means traders do fewer trips and thus make less money.
Misuse of funds
Although UNRA blames poor roads on poor funding, the Auditor General found evidence of abuse of funds at UNRA.
For instance, a Price Adjustments (Compensation for Variation of Prices) audit has revealed that substantial amounts of money was being paid to contractors in form of compensation for change of prices of basic materials and labour under the ‘Price Adjustment’ clause.
The amounts paid during the year under review ranged from 10.5 per cent to more than 60 per cent of the value of works done.
From our analysis, the Auditor General noted errors in the computations of the VOPs.
For example, at the time of audit, a total of Shs91.2billion had been paid in respect of VOPs on the projects from which errors estimated at Shs27.6 billion.
On-going road project
Roads
Soroti Mbale- Tororo road (140km)
Soroti -Dokol Lira road (125km)
Matugga Semuto road(100km)
Kabale-Kisoro road
Kabale-Kisoro road (100km)
Kampala-Masaka road
Masaka-Mbarara road (154km)
Nyakaita to Kazo road (68.0km)
Mbarara-Ntungamo road (57.1KM)
Completed: Jinja Bugiri
Amounts Paid
Road Project Amount of VoP paid Amount paid in Error
Kabale-Kisoro Shs31 billion Shs 9.7 billion
Soroti-Dokolo Shs 21 billion Shs3 billion
Dokolo-Lira Shs24 billion Shs3 billion
Kampala-Gayaza-Zirobwe Shs5 billion Shs1 billion
Sub Total Shs 82 billion Shs18 billion
