World Bank to reconstruct Tororo-Kamdini highway

The reconstruction of the strategic Tororo-Kamdini highway, which is expected to boost trade between Uganda, Kenya and South Sudan, is expected to begin in February this year.

The road project that covers 340 kilometres is funded by the World Bank at a tune of €138 million (about Shs583 billion).
The road agency, the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra), said the road will boost trade between Kenya, Uganda and South Sudan since it will ease the movement of goods and services between the neighbouring countries.

“The road if, successfully completed, will develop east and northern Uganda,” Unra station engineer Lira regional office, Ms Harriet Ogam, said yesterday.

She added that the contractor will employ machine operators, truck drivers and causal labourers from the local community, and “this will help in reducing poverty because the community will also earn a lot of money from the sale of food and other supplies to the workers.”

This newspaper has learnt that Unra has already awarded the contract to a Portuguese construction firm called Mota-Engil Africa.

The contractor has already acquired land at Kamdini in Oyam District and Boroboro in Lira District to set up site camps.

Confirmation
Ms Ogam confirmed the development, adding that the road from Lira to Kamdini, which is currently full of potholes, will be reconstructed.
“The road from Lira to Tororo will be rehabilitated, strengthened and enlarged to accommodate the heavy traffic mainly by cargo trucks which ply between Mombasa in Kenya and Juba in South Sudan,” she said on Tuesday.

On July 2, 2018, Mota-Engil Africa announced on its website that it had signed two contracts for the refurbishment and maintenance of two roads with a length of 340 kilometres in Uganda.

Ms Ogam said the inspection of the road would be done this week as the company begins establishing their camps to start the actual work next month.
“The machinery and equipment imported by the contractor have started arriving in the country,” she added.

The contract period is 10 years and the road is expected to be commissioned in 2029.
“The construction of the road will start from Kamdini because the road section between Kamdini to Lira is almost becoming impassable because of the damage caused on the road by heavy trucks,” Ms Ogam said.

In 2007, partly financed with a loan from the World Bank, the government of Uganda began improving the surface of Soroti–Lira road to class II bitumen with shoulders and drainage channels.

Upgrading of the 62.6 kilometres of Soroti-Dokolo section began in May 2007. Work on the 60.4 kilometres Dokolo-Lira section began a month later.

The construction contract was awarded to China Roads and Bridge Corporation at a cost of Shs153.1 billion and the project was completed in 2010.

But the World Bank which funded the project rejected it saying the road was substandard and narrow. Because of this, it has never beencommissioned and some section of the road has now developed cracks and potholes.