Jinja City leadership seeks more funds to cater for growing population
The recent report released by Uganda Bureau of Statistics (UBOS) indicates that Jinja's total population is 292,386 people, placing it second to Arua City 380,824 people with the highest population outside Kampala metropolitan.
To the mayor of Jinja Peter Kasolo Okocha, the UBOS figures mean that there need for more funding from government to ensure provision of services.
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"When the number of people in an area is high, it translates into more demand in services especially the infrastructure, but our budget has remained the same like the old Jinja Municipality," Kasolo said.
Jinja's budget is shs35 billion , which the mayor says has remained the same as the old municipality even when it was elevated to city in 202o when more areas were annexed onto the municipality.
He said areas like Mafubira, Bugembe and Budondo were annexed onto Jinja to make it city.
"The city has a road network of more than 200Km but we get only shs1 billion for road funds, yet by standards shs1 billion can't even make one kilometre of a road," Kasolo says
He is worried that should government continue giving Jinja those meagre resources for road funds, it will take 200 years for all the roads to have tarmac.
Kasolo proposes that during budget allocation by government, the population numbers should be considered because high population attracts stress on the infrastructure like roads.
He applauds government for the world bank USMID projects but he says more is desired to be done to improve the road network in Jinja City.
Kasolo however is happy that the population of Jinja is growing which he links to rural urban migration and also the urbanisation in the area.
"Jinja is the sitting room of Busoga and the whole of eastern Uganda and therefore many people have shifted from different districts to come and stay here, which is good because it comes with development," Kasolo said.
Kasolo encourages more people to come to Jinja especially investors in tourism and industries
"Jinja was known as the industrial city of East Africa but recently we added tourism due to the famous Source of the Nile and other tourist attractions. Therefore we need people to invest in the two sectors."
He encourages investors to invest in accommodation and adventure since Jinja the fast becoming an adventure capital of Uganda coupled with the traditional industries
