Masaka authorities re-open roads turned into plots
Masaka City Mayor Florence Namayanja (in plastic chair) and other political leaders at Kyewalyanga Road which was blocked with heaps of murrum on October 29, 2021. PHOTO/FILE
What you need to know:
- The unblocked roads include Kyewalyanga Road Muteesa II, Grant Street, Nalubaale and Kooki Streets.
Masaka City authorities have unblocked four roads that unidentified developers had demarcated into plots for sale.
Ms Florence Namayanja, the city mayor, said “investigations are underway over how unscrupulous developers mysteriously acquired the road reserves and turned them into plots.”
The unblocked roads include Kyewalyanga Road Muteesa II, Grant Street, Nalubaale and Kooki Streets.
For Kyewalyanga Road, some unknown developers had already started demarcating plots on the section of the road while on other roads construction of buildings within gazetted road reserves had commenced.
“We have cleared the blocked roads to ease access to all downtown corners. Whoever claims ownership of such land and road reserves should take us to courts of law. We are ready to defend our actions,” Ms Namayanja said in an interview on Monday.
Earlier, Masaka City leaders clashed with technical staff over the intentions of private developers to block the roads and “wondered how such embarrassing developments could happen in the city without notifying authorities.”
Last year, area Members of Parliament (MPs) led by Nyendo–Mukungwe legislator and also Leader of Opposition in Parliament (LoP), Mr Matthias Mpuuga, visited some of the affected roads and stopped further dumping of murrum in the area.
Masaka, being one of the oldest administrative units in the country, inherited a lot of properties from the colonial government, but unscrupulous politicians and bureaucrats have over the years illegally sold some to Individuals.
Some of the disposed of properties include the mayor’s garden, town clerks residence, Old Kumbu estates, a public cemetery and a host of forest reserves.
In 2015, the High Court in Masaka issued an injunction suspending the Masaka District land board from conducting any transaction on land managed by the then municipal council.
This followed an application filed by some of the then Masaka Municipal Council authorities challenging what they termed as continued irregular sale and allocation of public land in the area.
USMID projects
Masaka ,which is among the 10 towns elevated to cities in July 2020, has greatly benefited from the World Bank funded Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development Programme (USMID) aimed at improving infrastructure in urban centres across the country.
The project comes with components such as road construction, street lighting and planting grass and flowers as a way of beautifying urban centres .Already, roads like Yellow Knife Road, Edward Avenue, Jethabhai Street, Alex Ssebowa Road and Katwe Road have been revamped. Other roads including Broadway, Birch Avenue, Hill Road are under construction.
Other roads which have been lined up for construction include; Kyewalyanga /Nalubaale Street, Barracks Road , Villa Road, Nyendo Market Circular Villa Road and Nyendo–Kitovu Road.
