PARLIAMENT has approved sh116b for the maintenance of national roads. The monies will be channeled through the Uganda Road Fund (URF) in the second half of the 2009/10 financial year, Eng. Francis Baziraake, the board chairman, said.
Uganda has 21,000km of national roads, district 22,500km, urban 4,800km and 35,000km of community access roads.
National roads are managed by the Uganda National Roads Authority.
The URF board will take charge of the money this month and disburse it to the designated agencies based on their annual work plans, according to Baziraake.
The fund will finance districts, urban authorities and the roads authority as mandated by the URF Act of 2008.
However, the desired structures, systems and procedures for disbursing and monitoring the utilisation of the funds are not ready, experts argue.
Development partners have also in the past asked the Government to delay the operationalisation of the fund until the required structures are put in place.
They called for the implementation of the fund in the 2010/2011 fiscal year, at the earliest, when all systems are in place.
This, they argue, will provide a fresh start and the break from the past funding methodology.
“It is not possible for the road fund to be operational in January 2010,” they said in a statement read recently by Vincent de Visscher, the head of the European Union Mission in Uganda.
The donors also want a transparent financial management system and an open communication channel.
Baziraake noted that the URF board was negotiating with the finance ministry to be allowed to use the existing systems to monitor the the funds.
This, he said, would be formalised in a memorandum of understanding between the institutions in a way that will enable the board monitor and keep track of the flow and utilization of the monies from January to June.
