Uganda risks "road crash pandemic" with zero funding for safety initiatives, activists say

Details of the budget framework paper for the 2024/2025 Financial Year reveal a disturbing lack of funding for road safety initiatives in Uganda. This has sparked outrage from both parliamentarians and road safety advocates.

Mr Robert Kasolo, MP for Iki-Iki County and representative of the Parliamentary Forum for Road and Water Safety (PAFROWS) committee, warned that zero funding for road safety could lead to a significant increase in road crashes in the country.

“On a sad note, this [zero funding] takes us back to where we came from, where we are going to see people dying on roads everyday like chicken,” Mr Kasolo said.

Kasolo made the remarks on Tuesday during a meeting focused on advocating for proper road safety funding. Notably, Ministry of Finance officials were absent from the meeting, further fueling concerns about the lack of justification for this decision. 

“They [Ministry of Finance] are not here because they are engaged. It is a deliberate move because they know they didn’t allocate road safety activities any money for the new financial year. Road safety has not come to their senses, they are in their comfort zone and don’t know that people are dying on the road yet road safety affects everyone,” Mr Kasolo added.

While making a presentation on the status of financing of road safety interventions since approval of the new budget, Mr Edward Kizito, the Senior Road Safety Officer at the Ministry of Works and Transport, said much as the ministry received Shs4.7bn for two quarters that run up to December 2023, part of which went to road safety, there is still a challenge of uneven releases and availability of funds.

“When we need the funds in certain quarters, sometimes there are poor or no releases. This distorts the planning and implementation of a number of activities. And whenever there are budget cuts, activities for road safety are considered to be consumptive and are the ones to be affected,” Mr Kizito said.  

Mr Kizito outlined critical road safety activities currently facing funding shortfalls. These include taking over vehicle inspections from SGS, commercial vehicle licensing, driver testing automation, and nationwide road safety awareness campaigns.

“We have carried out different campaigns and when we do evaluations to find out the impact of the same campaigns that are not sustained for a period of time, the impact is not as much compared to what has been done in other sectors such as health. There is a need for a road safety fund to take care of activities because road safety is not only implemented by the ministry but by many ministries, departments and agencies,” he said.   

Mr Timothy Chemonges, the Associate Director at the Centre for Policy Analysis (CEPA), acknowledged Parliament's limited ability to ensure allocated funds are released. 

“We don’t have infinite resources but it is a continuous effort to ensure that we can have more resources to ensure that there is sanity on our roads. The money that has been allocated to the sector is not enough. And when the money is not released, it defeats the core role of parliament of appropriation,” Chemonges said.

Road safety context

According to the Uganda Police annual crime report, the number of reported incidents of road crashes increased by 16 percent from 20,394 in 2022 to 23,608 in 2023. Out of the total crashes reported, 4,179 were fatal, 12,487 serious and 6,942 were minor crashes. There were 24,728 casualties from road crashes in 2023 compared to 21,473 in 2022, giving a 15 percent increase in the number of casualties.

The report says the high rate of road traffic crash injuries and fatalities was attributed to overcrowded and poorly maintained vehicles, speeding, driving under the influence of alcohol, failure to use seatbelts and helmets and a general disregard to traffic regulations, among others.  

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