Oyam residents demand speedy repair of bridge

The long delay in repairing the Oryemapat Bridge in Ngai Sub-county, Oyam District, has greatly hindered economic and social activities. Many businesses have shut down because the costs of operations have increased owing to the difficulty in transporting goods.

The River Obongkonga burst its banks, causing flooding that damaged the bridge. The damaged bridge connects Bobi Sub-county in Omoro District to Nyai Sub-county via Bobi-Aboke highway. The Daily Monitor established that the collapse of the bridge has for months paralysed traffic and business in the area. The affected town councils include Ngai and Iceme. Last week, a group of businesspersons in Iceme and Ngai protested the delayed repair of the bridge. Last weekend, Mr Morris Ojok, a restaurant operator in Ngai Town Council, said many businesses in the town council were on the verge of collapse since they depended on passengers and truckers who used the route.

“At the moment, my business has been jeopardised because vehicles like trucks, buses, and taxis no longer use the route since it is cut off,” Mr Ojok told the Daily Monitor. Mr Daniel Odul, another trader at Ngai Town Council, said the situation has doubled the cost of transport to Iceme Town Council or Lira City to buy merchandise. Because the road has been cut off by the broken bridge, wholesale suppliers who used to transport goods in trucks to the area no longer do so in fear of the bad state of the alternative routes that pass through Abok and Anyeke sub-counties. Before the tarmacking of the Lira-Kamdini-Gulu road, the Bobi-Aboke-Lira road acted as a key route used by truckers from eastern and northeastern Uganda heading to the Acholi Sub-region and South Sudan.

Mr Jimmy Obote, a taxi operator, in an interview, told this publication that travellers going to Lira City from Ngai, Abok, and neighbouring areas now pay between Shs15,000 and Shs20,000 because of the bad state of the alternative routes. “Previously it was Shs10,000 before the bridge broke down, but now we have been forced to double it because the routes going through Abok, Anyeke, or Loro are also in terrible shape,” Mr Obote said. He explained that they were compelled to increase the transport fares because of the longer distance they now cover while using the alternative routes. Ngai Sub-county officials also said the collapse of the bridge has hindered their efforts to generate revenue in the past seven months.

Mr Jimmy Anywar, the sub-county chairperson, said four markets from which the sub-county collected revenue have been forced to close because trucks from Iceme, Otwal, Aboke, Ayer sub-counties and Lira City, can no longer acc