The KCCA deputy Executive Director, David Luyimbaazi has revealed that with the current funding from government, it will take 32 years for Kampala to get rid of potholes.
“We have been getting a budget of about Shs64billion to Shs70 billion every financial year, for the past three years. Now, with the unit cost of construction of Shs6-Shs7 billion for every kilometer, that is about 10Kms we can do every year. Now, if we have 320Km that you have to reconstruct, you need 32years to fix those roads, that is the situation we are talking to. So when you ask us to take away the potholes, and you don’t look at the financing we have and we can only progress at 10Kms every year, and we need 32 years, you can now understand the dilemma we are in,” Luyimbaazi said.
He said KCCA has a network of about 2100Kms of that amount, 650Km is paved and of the paved roads, about 60% have outlived their design life.
Luyimbaazi was on Wednesday interfacing with the Commissions, Statutory Authorities, and State Enterprises (COSASE) of parliament.
KCCA Executive Director, Dorothy Kisaka shared similar sentiments.
“Nobody wants to be known by a negative name. Our budget hasn’t met the need of dealing with the potholes in the City. We have been given a promise because money isn’t money until it is given that in the next financial year, there is a substantial budget allotted to us and some of these things are going to be addressed. Without a budget, we can’t do anything. It isn’t like planting grass which we just grow. Roads require billions and billions of shillings,”Kisaka said.
The Special Forces Command(SFC) was last year allowed to help KCCA maintain Kampala roads and the scope of work included repairing of potholes and doing sectional road works on selected roads.
SFC was asked to work on Rashid Khamis Road, Nsalo road, Old Kampala ring, Fort Road, School road, Lower Kololo Terrace, K.A.R road, Snay Bin Amir rise, Kiyembe lane, William Street, Burton Street, Wilson Street, Dustur Street, Sikh Street, Berkeley road, Ginnery road and Boundary road among others in the Central Business District.
The assistant project manager, Lt Eng. Kikomeko Kigongo said they have repaired over 75% of the potholes and as much as 90% in terms of the sectional repairs.
“We have done nearly 75% of the pothole areas and we are certain we will reach 80% during this phase. We will complete the remaining 20% when we request for the balance in the next phase. We still have another seven months to go since the schedule was 12 months,” Lt Eng. Kikomeko said.
Initially, the work was supposed to be done for shs2.1 billion but according to the assistant project manager, this has risen up to shs3.8 billion caused by an increase in the scope of work.
“The additional work was identified in form of potholes, concrete and drainages to bring it to about shs3.8 billion. For now, we have received about shs2.2 billion and we have done nearly all sections we were supposed to do, we have done 90% of the drainage in the second scope,” he said.
According to Lt Eng. Kikomeko, initially, SFC was supposed to fill 12,000 square metres of potholes but this scope was increased by another 7000 to take it to nearly 20,000 square metres.
“For now, our task is about 20,000 square metres but we have sealed more than 14,000 square metres,” Lt Eng. Kikomeko said.
