Revisiting the performance of Uganda’s road sector

As Uganda gears up for the reading of the budget for the last financial year of President Museveni’s current term, Business Power looks back on the promises made in the NRM government’s manifesto. In the inaugural part of this series, Benon Herbert Oluka looks at the roads sector, one of the key priority areas where the government has dedicated most funds in the last four financial years.

When businessman Patrick Mubangizi acquired a new fleet of eight buses for his company about three years ago, the Perfect Coach proprietor expected to repay the money for the lease then watch his company rake in the profits and grow.

That was the plan. But the reality has been an entirely different story.
Since then, Mr Mubangizi’s company has had to pay millions for miscellaneous bills it had not anticipated. For instance, he had to remodel the new buses to suit the roads they are operating on and pay for almost incessant repairs.

According to Emmanuel Muhwezi Mukiga, the general manager for maintenance at Perfect Coach, they carry out repairs on each of the buses each time it makes a trip from Kampala to one of the rural destinations in western Uganda. The buses ply the Kampala-Ntungamo-Rukungiri routes, with detours to the more rustic Kabwohe/Kikagata/Kabira, Ishaka/Mitooma/Kashenshero, and Kambuga areas.

“Most of the roads have a lot of black spots,” said Mr Muhwezi. “The buses are breaking springs every now and then and the body itself; the buses come with dents every time the road is slippery. The tyres are getting worn- out every now and then. It would be four months but because the roads are rough, especially in the villages, we replace them every three months.”
Mr Muhwezi explained that since the six buses were purchased, they have changed all their bus hang lines (frames) from the two millimetre square pipes that they came with to four millimetre square pipes due to constant breakages.

Mr Muhwezi said the bad roads also affect the vehicle wiring system brakes and tyres. “Because of the many pot holes, you brake every 100 metres. As a result, the break drums get worn-out and it results in high temperatures that can result in the tyres bursting,” he said.

Officials at Perfect Coach say they spend at least Shs1.4 million per day on repairing eight buses and Shs1.45 million for each Michelin tyre.
Like the Perfect Coach proprietor, nearly every motorist or vehicle owner in Uganda spends a substantial amount of money on the vehicle repairs occasioned by the state of the country’s roads.

While no study is known to have been undertaken to aggregate the cost of bad roads on motorists, Works and Transport Minister John Nasasira recently estimated that road accidents alone – caused by bad roads or otherwise – cost Uganda about 2.7 per cent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) in terms of lives, injury, as well as loss of vehicle and other property.

Uganda’s GDP, meaning the value of goods and services produced within the country, was estimated to be $15.8 billion (about Shs31 trillion) in 2009.
The above factor and the fact that road transport accounts for over 90 per cent of Uganda’s passenger and cargo traffic are two of the leading reasons why, while campaigning for the presidency in 2005/06, President Museveni made the rehabilitation of Uganda’s road sector one of the key items of his manifesto. In his 2006 manifesto, President Museveni noted that, “The NRM government will make major investments in the transport sector that will cover upgrading and tarmacking of national roads connecting each district headquarter to the capital with a tarmac road.”

President Museveni lists, in his manifesto, 21 national roads that he promised his government would upgrade to tarmac or reconstruct during his five-year term of office. The roads measure a total of 2,253 kilometres.
President Museveni also promised to upgrade over 5,000 kilometres of district roads to national road status, implement the Greater Kampala Transport Master plan and decongest vehicular traffic in the city, as well as construct over 30 bridges, including the design of a new bridge across the Nile in Jinja District.

To achieve this, the NRM government made the roads sector one of the recipients of the biggest chunks of the national budget over the last financial years. It also established the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) in July 2008 with the mandate of developing and revamping some 20,000 kilometres of the national road network and 10,000 of district roads.

Within the last two financial years alone, the government allocated to the roads sector Shs2 trillion in an economy that has spent an average of Shs5.7 trillion per year over the last four financial years.
So, as Uganda prepares to embark on the last financial year of the NRM government’s five-year term, what has been the out turn of the trillions spent on roads in the last four years?

Classification of roads
Roads in Uganda, says Mr David Luyimbazi, the director of planning at UNRA, fall under four categories. The first are national roads, which total 10,500 – of which 3,000 kilometres is tarmac and 7,500 kilometres is gravel. UNRA is responsible for the development and maintenance of these roads.

“As part of the reforms in the road sector, the Ministry of Works and Transport is increasing the size of the National Road Network from 10,500 kilometres to approximately 20,000 kilometres by taking over 10,000 kilometres from the District Road Network. UNRA will develop these upgraded roads to National Roads Standard in a 3–4 year time frame with effect from FY ‘09/10,” explained Mr Luyimbazi.

The second category is the district roads. This network comprised of 27,500 kilometres until 10,000 kilometres were handed over to UNRA. The development and maintenance of this network is the responsibility of district local governments, under the supervision and guidance of the Works ministry.

Urban roads are the third category. They are 4,800 kilometres in total, with 650 kilometres of it already upgraded to tarmac and the rest either gravel or earth. Statistics indicate that Kampala City Council manages 900 kilometres (350 kilometres tarmac), while the rest are under the 12 Municipalities and 97 Urban Council across the country.