Lord Mayor Lukwago alleges that cartels in govt obscenely inflating cost of civil works

Kampala Capital City Lord Mayor Erias Lukwago is frustrated by the obscenely inflated cost of civil works in Kampala.

He attributed this to the perpetual neglect by the powers that be, as well as, inadequate funding and abuse of little funds available.

In a letter addressed to the Leader of Opposition in Parliament about the rot in Kampala city, Lukwago notified Matthias Mpuga that the state of the road network in Kampala is deplorable state and rotten to the hilt.

Lukwago who was addressing journalists at city hall in Kampala revealed that their next financial year budget was slashed from Shs78 billion to Shs10 billion and yet their fuel suppliers Totalenergies cut them off due to arrears worth Shs2.6 billion.

He said that with such a huge challenge, construction and maintenance of other road networks within the capital city, Kampala, has now been hindered.

“The small interventions we have been receiving are courtesy of development partners such as the World Bank, DB and JICA. What baffles us most is the fact that even these borrowed monies are misappropriated by a cartel of individuals in government largely through inflated Bills of Quantities and unit costs. For instance, the 2020 CCPAC report shows a blatant use of lamp sum prices which tend to facilitate resource haemorrhage issuance of overpriced contracts,” he said.

The Lord Mayor cited from the said report that the funds estimated for the contract design of city roads worth Shs92.68 billion in 2015, increased by 70% within 10 months. Additionally, records from Kampala institutional and infrastructure development project (KIIDP) revealed that 1km of these roads was estimated to cost shs.10 billion.

Lukwago highlighted that some funds for roads in Kampala were abnormally inflated and confirmed that the matter was raised to African Development Bank and IGG hence leading to a delay in the commencement of civil works thereby aggravating the appalling state of road networks in Kampala.

“For example, the construction of Lukuli road in Makindye, which is 7.71km cost Shs70.5 billion, Kulambiro Ring/Najjera link, Nakawa-Ntinda road in Nakawa and Acacia Avenue all totalling 9.77km cost Shs90.4 billion and Kabuusu-Bunamwaya-Lweza in Lubaga/Lweza which is 8.06kkm cost Shs93.7 billion,” he noted.

In the case of the 31 African Development Bank roads lined up for construction this year, Lukwago explained that these constitute 69km at a cost of $287 million (Shs1 trillion). In the end, each kilometre will cost a whopping Shs14.4 billion.

It’s on this notice that the lord mayor wrote to Mathias Mpuuga the Leader of Opposition seeking his indulgence to cause the intervention of parliament, on such a matter which is of national importance.