A description of the performance of Uganda's Roads subsector over the last ten years

1. INVESTING WHERE IT MATTERS MOST; AN OVERVIEW OF UGANDA’S ROAD SUBSECTOR
PERFORMANCE
By Sam Stewart Mutabazi
Uganda’s total road asset value is estimated at $6Billion. The country has total road network of 85,000
Km compared to Kenya with 175,000 and Tanzania’s 87,000Kms. Although Tanzania is the largest among
the three countries in terms of size, it has a smaller road network because the nation is sparsely
populated with vast unsettled areas. Uganda’s newly found love for road infrastructure investment
started with donor driven reforms that saw the restructuring of the Ministry responsible for works and
transport in late 1990’s. Prior to this, the NRM government under Yoweri Museveni was more
preoccupied with other sectors and paid less attention to roads. In 1986 for instance when the current
government came into power, 1300 Kms of the country’s’ roads were paved. By the year 1996, only
about 200km had been added to the inherited stock.
In 1996 when serious reforms started, not much had been achieved in terms of investment in this
important sector. The country embarked on sequenced intervention through the Road Sector
Development Plan (RSDP 1) which was a 10 year guiding document that spelt out road investment
decisions. The RSDP has since been revised and is currently in its third phase. Originally implemented by
the Ministry of Works , Transport and Communications as it was then known, the RSDP was later
implemented by the Road Agency Formation Unit (RAFU) which later transformed into Uganda
National Roads Authority (UNRA), the current government agency created in July 2008, responsible for
maintaining and developing the national (trunk) road network. Although not strictly followed, the RSDP
provides a coherent framework on expenditure and performance of the sub sector in terms of current
and medium term road transport investment projections over a ten year period.
Since the creation of UNRA in 2008, government has invested approximately $3 Billion mainly in
reconstruction and development of new roads with possibly less than 10% of this spent on maintenance.
Government policy has consistently been in favour of national roads in anticipation that with better
interconnectedness of the main arteries between major towns and districts, the country’s movement of
goods and services would greatly be enhanced leading to better growth prospects. At a mere 4500Kms
(4%) of paved roads, much of which has been accomplished in the last ten years, Uganda is grappling
with the common dilemma facing most developing countries especially in Africa; whether to keep on
investing more into reconstructing and developing new roads or allocating the largest chunk of its road
sector budget to maintaining the few kilometers of its paved roads.
With majority roads that were constructed fifteen years ago due for major maintenance works,
government finds itself in an awkward situation of whether to concentrate its limited resources on the
few paved roads in motorable condition at the expense of the larger network in the countryside
completely unattended or spend its limited resources evenly across the country with minimal likely
impact. Either way, it is a difficult decision to make on behalf of the government as demand for paved
roads keeps piling on the government from different regions of the country. Many development

2. partners are in support of prioritization on road maintenance rather than development and
reconstruction. They argue that new roads are only making the already bad situation worse. Led by the
European Union and the World Bank, donors are urging government to at least divide the road budget
into half with one half reserved for maintenance while the other should be for development.
Uganda Road Fund (URF) the government agency purposely created by government in 2010 to maintain
public roads operates an annual budget of approximately $150 Million, money not enough to maintain
21,000 Km of national roads, 25,000km of district and urban roads and 35,000km of Community access
roads. Created to operate as a second generation road fund capable of generating and disbursing its
own revenue by collecting road user charges and fuel levy, URF remains a stunted institution, an
appendage of the Ministry of Finance that is used as a channel of finances to the designated agencies
that are supposed to receive funds for maintaining their respective roads. The designated agencies
include 112 districts, UNRA and over 60 urban councils. Among the designated agencies, UNRA takes a
lion’s share of over 60% of the entire Road Fund budget. The reminder is shared amongst the other
lower local governments which cannot meet 5% of their annual road maintenance needs.
Although Uganda has various sector professional institutions, their growth and efficiency is as developed
as the industry itself. The Engineers Registration Board, a body established by an Act of Parliament is
mandated to register and license engineers to practice in Uganda. The Uganda Institute of Professional
Engineers (UIPE) the apex body of engineers in Uganda was formed after the collapse of the East African
Engineers body, East Africa Institution of Engineers (EAIE) in 1972. The Uganda Association of Consulting
Engineers (UACE) is the other critical sector player whose function is to bring together consultants in the
country and promote their interests. The other critical body is the Uganda National Contractors’
Association (UNBCEC) which is being revived after a long time of dormancy. These four professional
bodies make up the critical components of the local and international road construction industry
system. Development partners such as the Cross Roads Programme and the European Union have come
in to support these institutions because of the critical role they play in the industry. Capacity building
has been extended to each of the four institutions although their sustainability when donor support
wanes is not guaranteed.
The road construction sector is currently dominated by foreign firms which are in charge of over 90% of
all major road projects. The major contractors include; RCC/SBI from Nigeria, new entrant Mota Engil
from Portugal, CCCC from China, China Railway Seventh Group from China, Energoprojekt from Serbia,
Salini Costruttori from Italy and many other Chinese firms with different capacities. Together with a few
other companies, these firms are in charge of on-going major road projects across the country with
varying length ranging from 50Km -200Km. There is no Ugandan firm in charge of a project of road
upgrade exceeding 20 Km at present . According to UNABCEC, there are at least 50 local construction
firms of Classification group “A” that have capacity to undertake medium size road projects in the
country. Government has only not given them an opportunity to prove their competence. The
contractors are currently in negotiations with government to make it a requirement that every foreign
owned firm must subcontract a minimum of 30% of the works to local firms. This is geared at building
the capacity of local contractors and is in accordance with the proposed Uganda Construction Industry
Commission Bill (UCICO) which is yet to be passed by parliament.

3. The unit cost of road construction has significantly decreased thanks to many Chinese firms that entered
the market five years ago. Analysts however are quick to point out that the low cost has had negative
implications on the quality of roads being delivered in the country. There is a high rate of pavement
failure for majority of recent projects. Roads with a design life of 10-15 years are lasting less than five.
UNRA has grappled with many administrative reviews with many contractors questioning the
transparency in procurement process. With support from DFID, UNRA was able to institute Independent
Parallel Bid Evaluation (IPBE) in 2013 with a British firm Crown Agents Limited acting as the first neutral
actor in reviewing tenders for various road projects. According to UNRA, the IPBE has been a great
success although contract award is only a small part of the long chain of corruption prone procurement
process. With the appointment of the new chief executive Ms. Allen Kagina at UNRA in May 2015,
observers are optimistic that forecast of the roads agency looks brighter on the assumption that there is
likely to be less political interference, targeted institutional reforms and restructuring to improve
performance.
The future outlook of the road construction sector is set to witness even bigger road projects in the
medium to long term. The $120Million Cable Stayed Jinja Bridge whose construction started in 2014 will
be completed in 2018, the Kampala- Entebbe Express way worth $500 Million will be open in 2017,
while construction of the Kampala Southern Bypass and Kampala- Jinja express way, a PPP project
supported by International Finance Corporation (IFC) at a cost of $800Million will commence is 2018.
Together with the private sector, Uganda will invest approximately $10 Billion in roads in the next ten
years, a figure that is almost half the country’s current GDP and more than its total investment in roads
in its entire history.
 The writer is the Executive Director of Uganda Road Sector Support Initiative (URSSI)