Mukono Reaps Big from Greater Kampala Metropolitan Roads Tarmacking Program

Government on Monday launched the tarmacking of the 9.72km road in Mukono Municipality under the Greater Kampala Metropolitan program funded by the World Bank.

The Minister of State for Kampala Capital City Authority and Metropolitan Affairs, Kyofatogabye Kabuye said that the contract for the tarmacking of Nassuuti-Nakabago-Ntaawo-Bbajjo road interlinking to Kigunga-Serado-Kob-Musisi road was awarded to Stirling Civil Engineering Company Limited.

After witnessing the signing of the contract between the Managing Director of Stirling, Gennaro Sirgio Vanni and Mukono Municipality Town Clerk, Francis Byabagambi, Kyofatogabye said that the government is to spend sh43.79bn on this road whose works are expected to last for 18 months.

The Minister said that under the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area (GKMA) program which is working with nine local governments that include Kampala, Mukono, Kira, Entebbe, Wakiso, Mpigi and others, the government is determined to settle the problems affecting the communities.

“We realized that it would be difficult to solve some of the big problems like traffic jam in Uganda’s capital city, Kampala without working on the metropolitan areas. By tarmacking the roads outside the main roads like the Kampala-Jinja highway, we shall be in position to offload the traffic and in the long run solve the big challenge of traffic jam,” he said.

The undersecretary Ministry of Local Government, Monica Edemachu who is overseeing the GKMA program said that unlike the normal construction of roads in these local governments, the roads to be constructed under this program are going to have well-constructed and covered water trenches, street lights and trees on the sides.

Edemachu said that this program, having started in Mukono Municipality, is going to move in all the nine local governments and that it is to last for five years.

William Makumbi, the Mukono Municipality Deputy Mayor showed gratitude to the government for having answered their prayers that had lasted for decades.

Makumbi said that as leaders of Mukono municipality, they have been criticized for years for failure to lobby the government for such developments.

“They have been comparing us to Lugazi Municipality which had just been elevated to that status but it gained a lot of things ranging from a well-constructed market, tarmacked roads with street lights and many other things which they got from the Uganda support to Municipal Infrastructure Development Program (USMID),” he said.

Makumbi said that some people were putting the under development of Mukono Municipality’s infrastructures to its political leadership being in opposition which was not the fact.

“I am so happy and grateful to the government that though we are from opposition, it has implemented this program which is not only benefiting a few of us but also the NRM government,” he said.

Mukono Municipality Town Clerk, Francis Byabagambi said that apart from the many roads which are going to be worked upon, the program is also going to have Kame Valley Market built into a modern market.

The Mukono Resident District Commissioner in charge of Mukono Municipality, Rhonda Titwe Kagaga said that though some of the politicians with ill-intentions first fought the program and tainted it before their electorates, they insisted telling the truth and at last, also the culprits came on board.

“This program is for the good of our people, our municipality and any one fighting it should not be tolerated. Imagine, if the first road we are launching today is billed at sh43bn, and we are to receive others soon,” she stressed.

Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament, Betty Nambooze Bakireke asked the contractor to resist any leader be it civil servants or politicians who will ask for money from him claiming he or she played a big role for him to win this contract.

Nambooze also urged his fellow politicians to play a supervisory role as the contractor is doing the work but avoid over staying on the site and jumping over the graders in interest of gaining political capital.

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