Heavy rains leave Namanve, Banda road cut off

Police issued a traffic alert to motorists following the Tuesday morning heavy rains. There is a particular spot at Banda which was recently rehabilitated by the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA). The authority has since unveiled a mega plan to rehabilitate over 30 city roads and drainages this year. Though there are other spots for example on Ggaba road in areas of Bunga.

“This is to inform all road users that water levels along Jinja Road specifically at Namanve and Banda are increasing thus affecting the swift traffic flow,” Police tweeted on Tuesday morning.

Not less than 70 km of the city roads are set to be reconstructed in the new phase. Dorothy Kisaka, the KCCA executive director, said the works would be done with modern technologies and would last for 15 to 20 years.

Nevertheless, there has been so much discussion on the unit cost per kilometre of roads in the country, with authorities arguing that the costs are driven by market dynamics while some critics cite syndicated corruption in the procurement sector as among the factors.

In 2021, KCCA launched the Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project. The project is aimed at increasing the stock and quality of strategic infrastructure to accelerate Uganda’s competitiveness.

Kampala requires significant infrastructural investments to shore up its productivity and ease of doing business.

This 48-months project is worth US$ 288 Million and this loan was effective July 2021.

The project is funded by the African Development Bank and African Development Fund, and is being implemented by KCCA.

Some of the specific objectives of the proposed project include: To enhance transport efficiency thereby enabling the City of Kampala to maximise agglomerative benefits of access and improved attractiveness resulting from reduced traffic congestion through upgrade and expansion of road network and to improve air quality in the city through implementation of Scheduled Eco-Bus transit Services and broadening travel choices for non-vehicular movements within Kampala by expanding networks of walkways and cycling tracks.