UNRA vows to work with communities after World Bank woes

Allen Kagina, the Executive Director of the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) has vowed that road agency will henceforth work more closely with communities to avoid cancellation of funding from development partners.

"The main stakeholder is the community in which a road is passing. As UNRA we have not always done that, we bring in contractors, they begin work, and the community may have concerns, and we have not always listened," she said at a press briefing at Media Centre in Kampala on Thursday.

Her comments come in the wake of the World Bank cancellation of funding to the Uganda Transport Sector Development Project (TSDP) because of contractual breaches related to poor project performance, social and environmental concerns, workers' issues, and serious allegations of sexual misconduct by contractors. 

"The multiple failures we've seen in this project -- on the part of the World Bank, the government of Uganda, and a government contractor - are unacceptable," said Jim Yong Kim, the president of the Bretton Woods' institution in a statement.

Kagina gave a snippet into how the authority will work with communities.

"Going forward, every road project, we will have a grievance committee, a community education programme, a social safeguard committee, an environment committee composed of not only us, but also the community members."

Kagina also revealed that as part of the restructuring at the organization, the authority is in the process of acquiring equipment to also undertake road projects.

"We are procuring equipment so that UNRA can also actually construct a road. Up to this point, everything is tendered out. But for the kind of organization we are, with highly skilled engineers, there is no reason why we should not construct roads."