The Lord Mayor of Kampala City, Erias Lukwago has revealed that the costs of working on the potholed Kampala roads are totally abnormal and is it’s intentional; being orchestrated by the mafias.
While addressing journalists at City Hall on Wednesday, Lukwago said he is very aware of the Mafia operations behind the hiking of costs for constructing and rehabilitating roads in Kampala. He revealed that the racket is big, some are in the central government while others are within the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA).
According to Lukwago, through African Development Bank, KCCA lined up 31 roads for construction this year,with a total of 69km. The entire work for construction will cost Shs1 trillion which simply means that each kilometre will be constructed at Shs14.4billion.
He said; “What baffles us are the large quantities of bills and inflated unit costs. This is ridiculous and outrageous. These costs are obscenely inflated. Imagine if a kilometre is to cost Shs14.4 billion and you have 2110km of roads in the entire Kampala, how are we going to construct all of them? It means during our lifetime; we shall never finish constructing the roads in Kampala.”
Lukwago also asserted that there has been an attempt by some officials within the authority to justify this huge cost.
He added that those justifying the hike in costs urge that there are traffic junctions and streets lights.
“In the East African region and entire sub-Saharan region we have the highest cost defeating even those areas where the terrain is difficult to navigate. We are not constructing in mountainous areas like Kisoro that we have to navigate around those terrains. Why do we have such inflated costs?” He asked.
“There is a cartel involving proxies of the regime and functionaries within the system at KCCA. We have been fighting this cartel for quite a long time. They are within the central government, here within the institution (KCCA) and outside the institution. This money is given with one hand and taken away with another,” he said.
Lukwago’s statement follows the recent funds which KCCA announced to run the Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project.
KCCA released a list of roads to work on in the five divisions of Kampala which include, Central, Kawempe, Lubaga, Nakawa and Makindye.
According to KCCA spokesperson, Simon Kasyate the whole project is to consume over Shs1 trillion from the African Development Bank (ADB)and the African Development Fund under the Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project (KCRRP).
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