Uganda’s Works and Transport Sector paints a true picture of Steady Progress

Yesterday, I spent a greater part of the evening reading about great leaders of this world and the tremendous achievements they registered for their nations. William J. Clinton, the 42nd President of the United States of America (USA), triggered my attention much more than others, hence I tried relating him to His Excellence Yoweri K. Museveni because of the vast resourcefulness surrounding their presidency.

Under Clinton’s leadership, USA enjoyed the strongest economy and longest economic expansion in United States history up-to-date. It further turned out that advancing equal opportunity and economic empowerment was both morally right and good economics, he defined racial discrimination, poverty and ignorance as mechanisms that restricted growth of a nation, while investments in education, infrastructure and scientific and technological research increase it, enabling him to create more jobs and new wealth for all citizens of USA.

In my analysis, a similarity of leaders is better made within their mandate to build a great nation even when the resources around them are quite uncertain for utilization. However, I am proud of the fact that amidst our small economy as Uganda, President Museveni has ensured that infrastructural development is still upholding our hope to a middle-income economy by 2040.

Checking on Uganda’s Vision 2040, it conceptualizes to build on the progress that has been made in addressing the strategic bottlenecks that have constrained Uganda’s socio-economic development since independence, including; ideological disorientation, weak private sector, underdeveloped human resources, inadequate infrastructure, small market, lack of industrialization, underdeveloped services sector, underdevelopment of agriculture, and poor democracy, among others.

In relation to that, it’s evident enough to prove that the Government of Uganda under the custodianship of His Excellence Yoweri Kaguta Museveni, has tremendously tried to address the majority of the country’s bottlenecks to enhance socio-economic transformation. Case in line is the president’s just-concluded country-wide wealth creation sensitization tour where he educated all spheres of society within the country on the do’s and don’ts towards enhancing household income among citizens.

Tourist Arrivals in Uganda steadily increased to 1.32 million in 2017 from 1 million in 2016 without our own Airlines, what anticipation should we have as a country, now that we revived our own Uganda Airlines, the Brand New CRJ 900 Aircrafts and the yet to come two of the bombardier aircrafts by September, that will kick start their commercial operations on 28th August 2019? Of course, it’s self-explanatory that there will be a tremendous boost not only to the tourism sector by over 3 million international tourists by end of 2019, but also the ease and offer cheaper flights across the continent as compared to other airlines.

It is also important to note that the rehabilitation of Uganda Railway Corporation is underway to reduce the high costs of transportation of Cargo and Passengers both within and beyond the borders of Uganda.

In the roads network sector, Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) continues to attract a lot of funding from the Government of Uganda because the leadership of President Museveni is cognizant of the fact that our economy can only grow to achieve middle income status with good roads to facilitate trade. At Independence in 1962, Uganda had approximately 844km of tarmacked roads, and by 1986, Uganda only enjoyed approximately 2800kms of tarmacked roads in the whole country.

Uganda today stands at a total of 4,971km National tarmacked roads, excluding the urban tarmac roads as of June 30th, 2019. Besides, Uganda National Roads Authority is currently implementing a total of 27 road projects (new construction and upgrading from gravel to paved bituminous standards) covering a total distance of over 1,920Km.

A total distance of 343Km of roads are under Rehabilitation, for example; Northern bypass which is 17.5km at 60.9%, Mpigi – Kanoni Road (65km) at 99.10%, Kanoni – Sembabule & Sembabule – Villa Maria (110km) at 98.7%, Kampala Flyover Construction and Road Upgrading Project like the Kampala - Jinja Expressway (77km) (KJE), Kampala - Mpigi Expressway (32km) - Section 1: ,Kibuye-Busega Expressway (10Km)-Section 2: ,Busega-Mpigi Expressway (27km), Kampala - Bombo Expressway (50km), to mention but a few.

There are also 10 ferries and 10 weighbridges that are functioning with around more 5 ferry development programs and 5 upcoming weighbridges.

Therefore, given the scarce or limited resources available us as a country amidst various challenges, its only wise to appreciate the Government of President Museveni for the far it has brought us most especially in the works and transport sector where steady progress and growth can evidently be seen.

The writer is a Communications Assistant at Government Citizen Interaction Centre (GCIC), Ministry of ICT and National Guidance.