World Bank gives Uganda sh375b to develop 14 municipalities

Aug 11, 2014

The World Bank has given Uganda a loan of $150m (approximately sh375b) to upgrade infrastructure in fourteen municipalities.

By Innocent Anguyo

The World Bank has given Uganda a loan of $150m (approximately sh375b) to upgrade infrastructure in fourteen municipalities.


The money will be utilized under an ambitious government infrastructural development project dubbed the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID).

The government has equally devoted $10m (approximately sh26b) to the project, as the country lays the foundation to whizz into a middle income country by 2018.

According to Dr. Isaac Mutenyo, the coordinator of USMID, the five year project which winds up in 2018 is aimed at enhancing the institutional performance of 14 municipal local governments to improve urban service delivery.

The fourteen beneficiary municipalities include Arua, Gulu, Lira, Soroti, Moroto, Mbale, Tororo, Jinja, Entebbe, Masaka, Mbarara, Kabale, Fort Portal and Hoima.

Unlike some of the previous infrastructure projects which were dogged by wastage of funds due to rigid budget allocations, Mutenyo noted that USMID’s performance-based approach to disbursement of funds will make it swim against the tide.

“The program implementation is unique since it is funded under the program for results instrument where disbursements are tagged to achievement of agreed results. This means the level of disbursement depends on the performance rather than on the budget allocations and implies that if performance is very good, the project may be implemented in less than five years,” explained Mutenyo.

“Therefore, if you have more capacity, you get more money.”

The respective beneficiary municipalities are responsible for implementation of infrastructure projects, while the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development (MLHUD) is tasked with undertaking the oversight support, capacity building of the municipal councils and capacity building of the physical planning and urban development functions.

The allocation of funds to the districts is based on population; poverty head count; land size and performance score for annual assessment.

85% ($135m) of the $160m will go to municipals councils to implement their various projects, while the remaining 15% ($24m) will remain at the central government level for execution of activities for grant administration and capacity building support.

Eventually, by the end of the project, the $136m will be divided as follows; Arua (7,767,077), Entebbe (8,330,647), Fort Portal (6, 729, 430), Gulu (27, 398, 943), Hoima (12, 678, 281), Jinja (9, 286, 813), Kabale (5, 910, 560), Lira (13, 639,759), Masaka (9, 591, 211), Mbale (9, 939, 703), Mbarara (8, 462, 712), Moroto (2, 128, 559), Soroti (7, 805, 930) and Tororo (6, 330, 368).

To bar embezzlement, Mutenyo said the usage of funds is being closely monitored centrally by a body comprising the various government bodies including the Inspectorate of government, police and the Auditor General.

“We are monitoring them closely. We check if the accounts have activity. We also check money has been moved from the project accounts for planned activities,” said Mutenyo.

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