Inside Tororo-Kamdini road stone quarry woes

Portuguese contractor, Mota-Engil Africa, has accepted to abandon use of the Merok quarry in Omulokonyi Village, Merok Parish, Soroti District, as the source of crushed stones (aggregate) for use in the construction works of 340Km Tororo-Kamdini road.

The Finance ministry indicates that the road project funder, the World Bank, have grown jittery about slow work progress since the project was flagged off last year with numerous controversies recorded on the site, particularly in Soroti.

The Bank in 2014 committed $243m (Shs897b) for the North Eastern Road Corridor Asset Management Project (NERAMP) to reduce transport costs and preserve the road assets sustainably by applying cost effective performance based asset management contracts.

The project includes construction and rehabilitation of the road from Tororo District in eastern Uganda to Kamdini in Oyam District in northern Uganda at a cost of Shs62b.

The Ministry of Finance records indicate that NERAMP was approved by the World Bank board on April 30, 2014 with a closing date of August 31, 2024, but the project money has been barely absorbed.

The bank, Finance ministry sources intimated, is concerned that the project “might take forever” like the 17.5km Kampala-northern bypass, which the same contractor is undertaking.

Since being handed the Tororo-Kamdini project site, Mota Engil has been locked in a cat and mouse disagreements with residents in Merok Village over digging up of the quarry reportedly on communal land.

On May 11, Mota-Engil Africa managing director Mauro Ventura wrote to the Unra executive director, Ms Allen Kagina, bemoaning the decision to throw the company off the Merok quarry but hastily added that they will comply.

“From the beginning of the process of acquisition of rock in merok, the contractor had the best intention to choose the option for best source rock material that would have the minimum environment and social impact and acquisition process in accordance with law,” Mr Ventura wrote.

“The employer (UNRA) and stakeholders will eventually appreciate that basing on our analysis of issues merok quarry was one of the best options in terms of environmental, social, health and safety,” he added.

Mr Mauro further explained that as soon as they “received notification” of award of the contract for the project, they immediately mobilised equipment for crushing of the stones/aggregates to be used in the construction works.

“Regarding the compensation process and pre-construction activities carried out by the contractor at the beginning of 2019, the contractor declares that these actions were carried out in good faith and considering the contractor’s position regarding the contract provisions and the best interest to start work as soon as possible,” the company indicated.

Mr Mauro said they engaged a local third party to acquire on their behalf the suitable aggregates for the project, and Merok’s were reviewed to be the best. And that the third party proceeded with identification, negotiation, and engagement with local authorities as per legal requirements, subsequently to which they acquired a 10 year lease for the quarry.

“In any case, in accordance with the employer’s (UNRA) instructions, the contractor hereby notifies the employer that abandoning the Merok quarry has implications in terms of time and cost to the contractor and it is already making the necessary logistical arrangements to start demobilisation of the stone crusher from the site,” he wrote.

Quarry disputes
There are several accounts regarding ownership of the rock measuring about 30 acres. Some accounts indicate the quarry is communally owned but some local leaders and brokers had hijacked its ownership. Other sources link the rock to some senior government officials, including an official in UNRA.

However, the quarrying deal had been snapped up by a company linked to a son of a prominent city lawyer/broker, which had also acquired the sublease of the rock on behalf of Mota Engil.

According to documents seen by this newspaper, Motal Engil defends that it carried out a resettlement action plan, and subsequently paid off affected persons early last year. In one correspondence to the chief government valuer, an agent of the company, noted that the area site was occupied by about nine and 15 households.

But a section of residents wrote a protest letter to the World Bank accusing the contractor of failing to adhere to social safeguards sparking a conflict over the matter.

Owing to these concerns and the recent experience of the World Bank freezing funding to projects over any social concerns, Ms Kagina in May travelled to the project site to allay fears among community leaders.

UNRA view
In an earlier letter dated May 12, in response to Mr Mauro’s correspondence, Ms Kagina indicated that there are “serious lapses in the acquisition process for the proposed Merok quarry, otherwise we shall not reach a quick resolution of complaints that have been on the project for the past one year.”

For instance, Ms Kagina noted that the compensation methodology was approved on April 12, 2019 after payments had already been effected. Also, while the request letter for approval for compensation is dated April 12, the approval letter refers to a submission dated of February 28, and a stamp for receipt shows March 7, 2019.

Likewise, the compensation report was submitted to Ministry of Land on April 15 and approved on May 2, 2019, but the copy shared with Unra “did not show” the amounts recommended for payments hence it is not clear what amounts were approved....”

“As you are aware, this approval was, thereafter, withdrawn by Ministry of Lands on June 5, 2019, and it states in part that ‘land (including crops and developments) was cleared by the contractor before verification and site visit by the chief government valuer’s office,” she wrote.

Ms Kagina poked holes in the contractor’s acquisition of the quarry, resettlement action plan, and other requisite pre-construction activities that were shoddily done.

UNRA’s director for corporate communications Mark Ssali said: “Following discussions between the World Bank, Unra and the contractor, a decision was taken to close the grievances and not to use Merok as a source of rock for the project.”

Projection Cost
The road section between Tororo – Mbale (50km) is tagged to a cost of Shs290b, while the Soroti -Dokolo – Lira – Kamdini section (124km) will cost Shs331.
The rest of the money is to support the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA)’s capacity to ensure sustainability on designing, awarding, and managing output and performance-based road contracts.