Katosi Road: Residents risk missing pay over wrong data

Residents who were affected by the Mukono-Kyetume-Katosi-Nyenga-Njeru Road projcect in Buikwe District risk missing their compensation packages following reports that they submitted wrong personal data to the government.

Recently, a team from Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) assigned to do a fresh verification exercise was shocked to discover that some claimants in the government database don’t exist on ground.

“When a team from Unra came here recently, we moved with them from door-to-door looking for the people on their list, but we could not find many of them, they [local leaders] might have presented a list for another area,” Mr Ramadhan Katantazi, the chairperson of Kiryowa II Village in Njeru South Parish, Njeru Municipality, told Daily Monitor in an interview last week.

Mr Katantazi said even when the Unra team moved to the neigbouring Village of Buziika A, they still failed to trace some of the claimants.

“We fear that imposters could have submitted their particulars to the government to deprive the genuine claimants of their compensation packages,” he added.

Some residents have been waiting for compensation since 2011 when the first evaluation of property was conducted.

On August 17, 2016, some of the residents staged a demonstration, protesting delayed compensation.

The residents, who marched through Katosi Town with placards demanding to be paid, also hurled insults at the workers on the road.

Mr Katantazi said many genuine claimants in his village frequent his office demanding to know when they will receive the compensation.

“It is very painful that some of the affected persons’ buildings have collapsed after developing cracks, they keep coming to my office to get an update on when they will be compensated, but I also don’t have answers. Let Unra come out and explain when these people will receive their money,” he added.

Mr Jimmy Okee, the chairperson of Bukaya West Village in Njeru Municipal Council, said ever since the road was completed in 2018, no meeting has been conducted between Unra and the project affected persons (PAPs) .

“In areas where there are new road projects which came after ours, the affected people were compensated. Why is it that some claimants on Katosi Road have not been given their packages?” he asked.

Mr Allan Ssempebwa, the corporate affairs manager at Unra, said the matter is being handled by the authority’s legal team.

“About that matter [of compensation] we are yet to get the position of our legal team which will inform our next step to either proceed to pay or not,” Mr Ssempebwa said .

Daily Monitor has learnt that a considerable number of claimants have been compensated, but even those compensated, some complain that their properties were undervalued, which prompted the land acquisition team from Unra to carry out a fresh valuation exercise.

Mr Ssempebwa said the technical team will come up with a final list of claimants, including those who have been compensated.

The 74km road connects the towns of Mukono, Kyetume, and Katosi in Mukono District to Nkokonjeru, Nyenga, and Njeru Municipality joining to the New Bridge on the outskirts of Jinja City.

Protest

In 2019, a group of angry PAPs joined by other residents in Nyenga Division, Njeru Central Division in Njeru Municipality blocked a team of Unra employees from putting visible reserve road mark stones in their land before they receive their compensation.

“The Unra engineers were trespassing on my compound and I ordered them to cover the hole they had dug and leave,” Ms Grace Baligire, one of the affected persons in Buziika Village in Njeru South Parish, said.

Mr Tom Wepukhulu, one of the affected persons whose house developed cracks opposite Njeru Stock Farm, said he tried to make a follow-up with the area political leaders in Njeru Municipality, but unfortunately he did get any feedback.

Background

The Mukono-Kyetume -Katosi-Nyenga-Njeru Road is currently one of the busiest highways and some motorists heading to the eastern part of the country use it to avoid the potholed section of Kampala-Jinja highway near Mabira Forest. Other motorists use Mukono-Kayunga-Njeru Road which connects to New Jinja Bridge .

President Museveni commissioned the roadworks on July 7, 2014 and the project was expected to be completed in 2017.

The contract was first awarded to Eutaw Company, but the contract was later cancelled by the   Inspectorate of Government after allegations sprung up that Eutaw was a phony company and that the contract procurement process had been mismanaged. The government went into another agreement with Reynolds Construction Company (RCC) to complete the road at an extra Shs110b, in addition to Shs165b, which had earlier been earmarked for the project.

The second contractor was also given additional road sections which were not originally included in the cancelled Eutaw contract. The new road sections included tarmacking access roads to Katosi Landing Site and another connecting to Buikwe District headquarters.

Other additional road sections were Nyenga-Njeru Road, measuring approximately 10 kilometres, which  connects to  the New Jinja Bridge to reduce traffic on the usually busy Kampala-Jinja highway.