By Simon Turibamwe
“Unlike other government-funded projects in lower local governments, it’s not hard to feel the impact of what the Uganda Road Fund [URF] financial support has done in Kasese town,” says Moses Kaputhu, Kasese Municipal Council’s former Works Secretary. Currently, the councilor representing Town Center Ward in the Municipal Council, Kaputhu says as a senior resident who has seen Kasese metamorphose from mere Town Council to Municipality there is reason to commend the URF for the financial support rendered without which there would barely be anything to write home about regarding road infrastructure. “I witnessed what these roads looked like and fortunately I’m now participating in smoothening up things which has no doubt improved the business environment making Kasese more attractive to potential investors,” Kaputhu adds. Kasese municipality Mayor Godfrey Kabyanga agrees. Kabyanga says many roads continue to be opened up to human traffic and subsequently renamed by the town residents who always call to register their gratitude to him as a political leader during whose time such development has come to Kasese. “Unknown to some of these grateful voters ringing to thank me, all this has been enabled through funding coming to us under URF. The truth of the matter this none of this is my personal money but grants from Uganda Road Fund which has firmly stood with us since 2010,” says Kabyanga.
He says the elevation to Municipality status expanded the original Kasese town territory, a development that strained the scarce resources as more villages (initially outside the town council) had to be added. “This has required opening more roads but gratefully, URF has always been with us through all situations,” Kabyanga observes. “Many of these hitherto virgin villages where added onto Kasese Municipality yet their road infrastructure hadn’t been planned for in the first place but dependable grants from Uganda Road Fund enabled us cope and have such added roads catered for.” Kabyanga says the URF cash is the reason they are rehabilitating and gravelling more roads and drainage channels in Kasese than would have been possible without the Road Fund intervention. “Kasese town used to flood and paralyze transport and affect people’s business all over the town in the past years but this now history after Road Fund enabled us to prioritize the maintenance of the drainage channels,” Kabyanga noted. Some of the roads that have newly been opened using money from URF (as provided by the engineering department) include Streets like Crescent, Maliseli, Saad and Dr.Henry Bwambale among others. There are also two roads that have been tarmacked on top of those that have been opened up and graveled. The two newly tarmacked roads include Portal Road and Mukirania Road. Kasese Municipality Engineer Apollo Bamwine corroborated fellow leaders’ observations regarding the impact the Road Fund has had for Kasese. “Part of our history as a new Municipality is we faced challenges of bad roads and flooding previously but the moment we heard of the Road Fund were like seeing a new messiah. They enabled us begin undertaking interventions we could never have dreamed of executing using our own meager revenue,” says Eng Bamwine. However, he notes that the URF support notwithstanding, the challenge remains huge because the amount of work that requires to be done makes the URF money to seem like a drop in the ocean. “We remain overwhelmed by road demands where everyone now wants road leading to his home tarmacked,” he says in a bid to explain growing appetite for good roads that has been sparked by the URF intervention. “From what has happened in other areas people have seen what improved road infrastructure can do to an area in terms of opening it up for economic activities,” Bamwine further explains. Currently, Kasese Municipality is stone pitching the Shauriyako Road drainage channel which Bamwine discloses is all 100% being funded using the URF grants. The October-December 2018 release was partly spent on remunerating road gangs (road maintenance team), maintenance and gravelling of Kyebambe Road. Other that were simultaneously spent on include Kihara Road which also did undergo gravelling. Eng Bamwine is hopeful that if the URF grant continues uninterrupted for another 15 years, Kasese town will have no more muddy roads as each and every road will be properly tarmacked and complimented with properly-functioning drainage channels. Central Division’s General Purpose Committee Chairperson Medard Muramuzi says the face of Kasese has greatly changed in the last 12 years largely because of the impact GoU interventions like URF have had there. But Muramuzi thoughtfully notes that credit goes to leaders who transparently handled the money Road Fund has been sending to Kasese over that period otherwise without accountable leadership, there would be much less impact on the ground to show for the billions coming under the Road Fund program. “I was elected a Councilor in 2011 when the first [Municipality] leadership was sworn in and the Road Fund was only one year but we have not even for one single day ever had problems with political or technical leaders in as far as accountability [for URF grants] is concerned,” Medard Muramuzi said.For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.
