Museveni promises more shs146bn to districts for road construction

President Museveni has said he has convinced cabinet to ensure an extra shs146 billion is given to districts throughout the country for road construction.

Speaking to NRM leaders at Watoto Church open grounds in Gulu city on Monday, Museveni said he realized that if the money is added onto the shs 168 billion that all districts currently get, they would at least be in better position to look after roads in the jurisdiction.

“Shs 168 billion means each district gets more than one billion shillings. We are now adding more money. When I went back, I told them(cabinet) to add another shs146 billion,”Museveni said.

Museveni explained that he was amused by the well-graded, compacted and well-drained but motorable murram road while he went to open the Atiak sugar factory in Amuru district on a rainy day recently.

He explained that using equipment distributed to every district a few years ago, this should be the standard of all murram roads in all districts throughout the country to ease transport.

“I demanded from engineers how much it costs to grade, compact and drain properly a kilometer of murram road. This is in terms of fuel because all districts now have the equipment. The only issue is the fuel. We are going to solve this and this calculation will guide us in allocating money to the districts,” he said.

By adding another shs 146 billion, districts will be sharing shs314 billion to help them in road construction.

Several feeder roads, especially in upcountry areas are in a sorry state despite districts getting equipment to maintain them.

Ac­cord­ing to the Na­tional De­vel­op­ment Plan(NDP) II 2015/​2016-2020-2021, roads in Uganda are cat­e­go­rized as Na­tional roads-21,000kms, Dis­tricts- 32,000kms, Ur­ban-13,000km.

This makes a to­tal of 66,000 km road net­work with the ex­cep­tion of the com­mu­nity ac­cess roads which amounts to 85,000km.

According to Museveni, by increasing the funding to districts, the number of motorable murram roads will also increase.