UNRA needs to revisit work plans
On Wednesday, Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) announced it will have by the end of the year completed the rehabilitation work on six national roads with a total of 346.5km of tarmac. These include the Nyenga-Njeru, Nakalama-Tirinyi-Mbale, Fort Portal-Hima, Hima-Katunguru, Ishaka-Katunguru, Fort Portal-Kyenjojo and Nakawa-Seeta highways.
Ms Allen Kagina, the executive director of UNRA, says another 1,714kms of the national road network will soon be upgraded. That UNRA is doing a commendable job and deserves our commendations cannot be overemphasized.
However, the pressure has been piling up on all major roads in the country so the Authority should not operate as if all is well. There is urgent need for the Authority to revisit its work plans and priorities. They need to be realigned with the challenges of the times.
We are, for example, experiencing traffic gridlocks of unprecedented proportions on the Kampala-Jinja highway, which points to a failure of our planning function. Whereas the traffic has been growing exponentially, the capacity of the road has remained at what it was in the 1980s. This was always going to be a source of trouble, especially in the absence of a functional railway network or fully developed water transport system. This explains why an 80km journey, which used to take less than an hour, now takes up to four hours.
Such delays have resulted in the loss of revenues for individuals, companies and the country. It discourages investment and in the long run hurts the economy.
The recent acrimonious debates in Parliament and governmental circles around the Kampala-Jinja Expressway. The debates should have taken place in or before the year 2000. Now one wonders whether it is still necessary to go ahead with such a project, especially in light of recent developments along the Kampala-Kayunga-Jinja highway and the Mukono-Katosi-Nyenga roads.
There is need for UNRA to go back to the drawing board and readjust its plans to meet demands of the times. Work should be targeted to ensure that we cure the problems that they are causing to the economy. UNRA could consider upgrading the Kireku-Namanve industrial area-Mukono road as a way of decongesting the stretch between Bweyogerere and Mukono.
UNRA should at the same time consider a programme of gazetting routes. We could, for example, decide that the Jinja-Nyenga-Katosi-Mukono-Namanve-Kinawataka route be gazetted for heavy tracks and the Kampala-Gayaza-Kayunga-Jinja route be gazetted for passenger vehicles and light trucks carrying cargo not exceeding 10 tonnes. This needs to happen now.
