Roadworks in final stages ahead of NAM

With four days left to the start of the 19th Non-Aligned Movement (NAM) and the Group of 77 (G-77) + China Third South Summits, multiple works are still going on, on all major roads that will be used by the guests.

The roads connect to the venue of the summits, Speke Resort Munyonyo, as well as to the city centre where many of the hotels that the delegates will use are located.

Between 1,000 and 1,500 delegates including 70 heads of state, will attend the back-to-back summits which will be held in Kampala between January 15 and 23.

Daily Monitor yesterday visited some of the roads and found workers engaged in different activities meant to beautify the city. These include constructing trenches, planting trees and flowers, among others.

Works

All these works are being undertaken by the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), whose major role as part of the NAM Organising Committee is to ensure that the city infrastructures are upgraded before the summit kicks off on Monday next week.

KCCA also installed street lights on all roads and completed the reconstruction and rehabilitation of some of the roads.

In some areas, however, construction vehicles were seen packed on the side of the road with no work being done.

The roads that are being worked on include Mukwano, which connects directly to the flyover via Nsambya; and the Press House road that connects to Kibuli.

Others are Kabalagala-Ggaba, Wavamunno, UCB Rise, Lukuli Rise, Prince Badru Kakungulu, and Mobutu.

KCCA also worked on two drainage channels at Soya-Bunga and at Auto Spa on Summit Road.

The authority’s deputy director of roads and drainage, Mr Maurice Kairania, last week said all works could be done by January 7, and the official commissioning will be done on January 10.

Mr Kairania said the works were completed and what was going on now is, “just tidying up the sites, greening and some landscaping works”.

During our visit, we discovered that some of the recently repaired roads developed cracks, which the workers were trying to fill. The most affected is the Kabalagala-Gaba road.

However, Press House and Mukwano roads were still under construction. The two roads are critical to the summits as they connect the city to the venue of the summits, Speke Resort Munyonyo.

According to the the official NAM programme which was released last week, many of the guests will be residing in major hotels near these roads and thus their readiness is paramount.

This is because, according to the ICT minister, Dr Chris Baryomunsi, the government wants to ensure that the delegates get excellent services.

The works being done on the two roads include creating drainage channels on both sides and setting up barricades to prevent motorists from falling in the drain system.

At Kabalagala-Gaba road, workers were also working on the tenches at Kabalagala Islamic Centre and around UK mall.

 We observed that KCCA laid one layer of asphalt on some part of this road, for example on a less than two-kilometre stretch between Mass Mall and the Institute of Petroleum Studies in Kansanga.

Major works were seen going on at the Soya drainage channel.