URF CASH BEEN INADEQUATE BUT HELPFUL, SAYS ENTEBBE MAYOR

By Joshua Walakira

Entebbe Municipal Council has announced readiness to continue using financial support from Uganda Road Fund (URF) to refurbish poor roads in the area making them more motorable. The Entebbe Municipality Mayor Vincent De Paul Kayanja says that, in anticipation of increased funding from the URF, already a number of roads have been earmarked for possible revamp. Key among these include Moroto and Busambaga Roads whose upgrade and maintenance works is to be conducted using money from URF. In a recent interview with this online reporter, Mayor Kayanja revealed that every year URF provides Entebbe Municipal Council an average of Shs1.4bn which goes into revamping and patching up of roads within the Municipality. Kayanja was specifically grateful to the URF management for always ensuring these funds come in time. He says this has boosted his Council’s efficiency in the delivery of road-related services as a number of roads have previously been worked on and complimented with street lighting and modern drainage-all using cash from URF.

He adds even modern drainage infrastructure has been constructed in partnership with URF, a thing that enhances durability of the roads as well as the cleanliness of the airport town. He says once roads are maintained or repaired and strengthened with effective drainage systems you then have sustainability and durability, two desirable outcomes Entebbe Municipal Council has been able to achieve because of the financial support from URF. “It’s a fact that we desire much more and wish the amount Uganda Road Fund allocates to us annually is increased but even the current allocation, inadequate as it may be, has been extremely helpful to us as leaders of Entebbe Municipality,” Kayanja repeatedly said throughout the interview.

He then listed some of the roads Entebbe Municipal Council has managed to improve upon using funding from URF over the years. They include Hill Road, Berkeley Road, Apollo Square Road, Circular Road, Buwaya Rise, Kiwafu Road, Sewabunga Road and Sebugwawo Road. Kayanja says the routine maintenance done on these roads including street lighting (using funding from URF) is the reason Entebbe residents can comfortably move on these roads as they go about their private business regardless of whether its day or night. The Municipal Principal Executive Engineer Richard Male Mukasa is another official we interacted with to understand Entebbe’s experiences with URF intervention. He said that whereas they are grateful that URF has enabled them cover so much mileage and without it the road infrastructure situation would be far much worse, the fact remains the Shs1.4bn they annually receive from URF is like a drop in a basket given the magnitude of work at hand that requires to be done in the road sector. “Whereas URF’s Shs1.4bn is something the truth is its almost nothing given that our road network totals to over 100kms but we keep coping with what is available since they say half a bread is better than no bread at all,” Eng Richard Male Mukasa told us in an interview. He said most of the tarmac roads in Entebbe Municipal Council’s area of jurisdiction are kept in passable and motorable state including instantly being able to fill potholes using cash that comes under the URF project. He admits the situation would be much worse without the URF intervention. Eng. Male further disclosed that so far the Municipal Council has managed to put up street lights and comprehensive drainage systems on four major roads including Bulime Road, Sewabunga Road, Buwaya Rise and Kiwafu Close. All said and done, Entebbe Municipality leaders remain optimistic that as the national resource envelopes continues enlarging as government collects more taxes, URF will gradually build more capacity to be able to fund them in a more impactful way going forward. For comments, call, text or whatsapp us on 0703164755.