It is not uncommon across the country to find a Boda Boda rider dragging iron bars and other such sharp objects on the road or somebody who stops along the main road and empties garbage in the drainage channels. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Road maintenance in Uganda isn\u2019t facing only funding challenges. Bad road use damages roads and increase the cost of maintenance. However, there are other challenges as well.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Gravel, a key component of road maintenance, which used to be freely available in the past within the road reserves is now sold at premium rates in almost all districts across the country. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe have to compete with contractors for national roads for gravel and other construction businesses,\u201d says Mugisha, the Mukono District Engineer. \u201cThis limits us from making gravel roads which are better than just grading,\u201d he adds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Besides gravel, in Kabale and Masaka, there are no stone quarries. \u201cWe have to buy stone chippings from Kakiri in Wakiso District or Mbalala in Mukono District. The transport costs are so much,\u201d says Abel Ssembajjwe, the Senior Assistant Engineering Officer of Masaka Municipality. It is the same for Kabale. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Some districts and municipalities have basic equipment for road maintenance while others don\u2019t have yet they must use the force account system which means that road maintenance is not outsourced to contractors. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
However, districts and municipalities even those that have equipment all lack bulldozers and excavators and low bed trucks needed in transporting equipment. In case they need such heavy equipment, they have to order them from the regional workshops. \u201cThe regional workshops cater for many districts and it is almost practically impossible to get the equipment due to their busy schedules.\u201d Says Turinawe Bagamuhunda, the Kabale District Engineer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Many officers in designated agencies echo his views. \u201cYou have to write to the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Works for authorization to use the equipment. The process is very cumbersome. And if you are lucky to find them, you need money to transport the equipment,\u201d adds Olal Andrew Obong, the Gulu District Engineer.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThere is a need to introduce new regional workshops so that they cater for a smaller number of districts,\u201d advises Alex Tumwesigye, the Kabale Municipal Engineer. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Districts and municipalities also face supervision and operational challenges. A lot of such designated agencies have no vehicles for supervision of road maintenance. \u201cWe have poorly remunerated staff. A grader operator earns about Shs12,000 per a day but when they go to work with private sector construction companies, they are paid between Shs150,000 and Shs180,000 per a day for heavy equipment and Shs100,000 for light equipment like rollers,\u201d Obong observes. \u201cOnce an operator leaves, sometimes you end up with a turn boy becoming an operator. There is a need for routine refresher courses for these operators,\u201d Mugisha adds. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
The creation of new districts has led to many challenges such as determining which road or bridge to work on where the works are to be shared by two districts. For instance, the Oluo Bridge on Enyau River along the Katrini-Kijomoro Road needs to be replaced yet the Enyau River forms the border of Arua and Maracha districts. It is not clear which district is responsible for it. Arua may want to work on it yet Maracha doesn\u2019t consider it a priority. This means that the two districts can\u2019t come together to fix it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In fact, it is very common to find a very good road that simply turns into a bad one at the border of a district because one district hasn\u2019t made that particular road a priority. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThe Ministry of Water and Environment has a forum for district officers to share ideas and learn from each other. There is need for the Uganda Road Fund to create a similar platform so that designated agencies can meet and agree on how to solve such problems,\u201d says Tariyo William Talyor Odaa, the acting Arua District Engineer. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
It is not uncommon across the country to find a Boda Boda rider dragging iron bars and other such sharp<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2264,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[167],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2263","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-road-sector"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/rd.jpg","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":2253,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/weighbridges-prolonging-road-lifespan\/","url_meta":{"origin":2263,"position":0},"title":"Weighbridges prolonging road lifespan","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"November 16, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"One of the challenges of maintaining gravel roads in Mukono District is lack of axle-control yet the district given its terrain is one of the major sources of sand and other building materials for Kampala, a city that is expanding at a very high speed.\u00a0 If heavy trucks are a\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "National News"","block_context":{"text":"National News","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/category\/national-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/weigh-bridge1556355240.jpg","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/weigh-bridge1556355240.jpg 1x, https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/weigh-bridge1556355240.jpg 1.5x, https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/weigh-bridge1556355240.jpg 2x, https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/11\/weigh-bridge1556355240.jpg 3x"},"classes":[]},{"id":2226,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/uganda-road-fund-more-than-a-decade-of-financing-road-maintenance\/","url_meta":{"origin":2263,"position":1},"title":"Uganda Road Fund \u2013 more than a decade of financing road maintenance","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"November 13, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"Over the years, the government of Uganda has prioritized the construction of highways to all the major towns in Uganda. 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The reason for its being empty, Rose Akello, a tenant tells us was due to dust and lack of customers. Akello lives nearby and had seen one tenant live after another prompting residents to believe\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "National News"","block_context":{"text":"National News","link":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/category\/national-news\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4075,"url":"https:\/\/prowebinhost.com\/anzu\/lands-ministry-clarifies-on-118-1-kms-world-bank-funded-gravel-roads-in-hoima\/","url_meta":{"origin":2263,"position":3},"title":"LANDS MINISTRY CLARIFIES ON 118.1 KMS WORLD BANK FUNDED GRAVEL ROADS IN HOIMA","author":"UgandaUpdate","date":"September 23, 2021","format":false,"excerpt":"By Our Reporters The Ministry of Lands ,Housing and Urban Development has dismissed as false press statements attributed to State Minister for Economic Monitoring, Hon Peter Ogwang, alleging that \u00a0118.1kms of gravel roads rehabilitated under a \u00a0World Bank funded successful project were \u201cshoddy\u201d and \u201cinflated the road length\u201d. 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