Japan to Uganda: Repair roads or no more grants 

The Japanese government has challenged the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) to repair all roads built with their grants before it can commit more funds for constructing new ones.

Fukuzawa Hidemoto, the Japanese Ambassador to Uganda, told Unra officials in Gulu City on Tuesday that his government can only extend more support to Uganda once it shows commitment in maintaining the roads.

“We the Japanese cannot do everything alone, our policy is to work with serious people, all these funds are not from the embassy, it is from the people of Japan, the taxpayers, so we have to be very careful since the taxpayers know that we are working here in Uganda with serious people and the money is helping the people,” he said.

Mr Hidemoto was in Gulu for a joint inspection of the 35km Atiak-Nimule road whose construction was completed in 2016 through financing from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA). 

He was responding to a request by Unra acting Executive Director Joseph Otim that JICA should offer financial support to Uganda to maintain and repair damages on national roads.

But Mr Hidemoto said they will be following up on all projects they have funded to assess value for money and level of maintenance by the Kampala government.

“This maintenance is not only for roads but also in schools, hospitals, etc. I know you have challenges with funds to do maintenance of roads but that is something your government has to do and I want to see how it is done,” he said.

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The ambassador added: “We will follow up on these projects to see how they are used, if it is used properly, the next project is there. Constructing a road is one tough thing but what is tougher is maintaining it, roads can be used for many years as long as there is good maintenance.”

In his brief, Mr Otim explained that Unra is currently financially constrained to maintain its roads.

“On the maintenance, we are financially constrained, maybe at one point, the Japanese government could come in to help us. For the last two years, we have had, arising from Covid-19, a constrained budget, which has limited our maintenance activities,” the Unra official said.

While several project-affected persons on the Atiak-Nimule road have not been compensated to date (7 years later), Unra has put up a grievance monitoring team that scouts for them and executes their payment, Daily Monitor has established.

Unra officials also said they have earmarked Shs290 billion for road repairs and maintenance in the next financial year.

“Our budget for annual maintenance next year is Shs290 billion for all the national roads, we shall apportion specific amounts to fix this road, we shall do the routine maintenance using bitumen, or we use our force accounts or contract other companies to fix those potholes,” Mr Otim added. 

In July 2013, Unra embarked on upgrading Atiak-Nimule road with a Japanese Yen 3.995 billion loan under concessional terms.

The road project complemented the 74km Gulu-Atiak road which was improved with financing from the World Bank.

According to JICA’s chief representative in Uganda Mr Inoue Yoichi, the road has facilitated regional trade competitiveness and integration of EAC member states.