Electorate, leaders must participate to protect road gains

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OPINION

By Faruk Kirunda

Roads and infrastructure are a key component in national development, without which all other factors may not link together to form a fully functional economy. That is why President Yoweri Museveni has prioritised infrastructure development, starting with a lion’s share of the budget from around 2008. This was maintained for several budget cycles.

In the latest commitment from the Government to the sector, every year, each district and city gets sh1b for road maintenance. In the 2026-2031 manifesto, the Government pledged to continue expanding, improving and rationalising transport by focusing on multi-modal systems, expanding the tarmac road network (from 6,306km in 2024 to higher targets), and focusing on maintaining existing infrastructure. Ugandans embraced that commitment and voted President Museveni back into power, a majority of the National Resistance Movement Parliament and local council (LC) structure. This political goodwill is expected to translate into faster achievement of service delivery targets.

Even before the new term of office starts in May, when the President and other elected leaders swear in, the Government is maintaining stable support for vital sectors.

Money for road maintenance for the third quarter of the financial year 2025/2026 was released last week. All cities — other than Kampala, which has a separate budget line — (Arua, Fort Portal, Gulu, Jinja, Masaka, Mbale, Mbarara, Lira, Soroti and Hoima), municipal councils, districts, local governments and town councils have received this money for maintaining their quota of roads. Also included is money for community access roads: from Adjumani, through Bugiri, Busia, Hoima, Iganga, Jinja, Kabale, Kabarole, Kapchorwa, Kayunga, Kotido, Luwero, Masaka, Masindi, Mbale, Moroto, Nakasongola, Ntungamo, Omoro, Obongi, Pader, Pallisa, Sembabule, Sironko, Tororo, Wakiso, to Yumbe (in alphabetical order), no local government was skipped.

The Government has done its part, continuing to provide resources for essential social services that spur national and grassroots development. In the era of the Parish Development Model (PDM), individual beneficiaries require access roads to take inputs to their ventures’ locality and, later, to transport produce to the market or to the processor.

Citizens need good roads to go to hospitals, children to get to school, as well as administrators and security teams to reach the people easily. In most parts of the country, even the remotest community access road can accommodate a car, a motorcycle or, at the very least, a bicycle. In effect, every part of Uganda is accessible by road.

Nevertheless, there is always an outcry over the state of roads, made the more pronounced during the rainy season when unpaved roads can become impassable. Like most utilities, with regular quality maintenance, these roads can be kept motorable for all seasons. The purpose of providing funds for maintenance is specifically to enable the local governments to manage works at that level and prevent roads under their jurisdiction from deteriorating, while the central government takes care of national roads criss-crossing the districts and cities.

Keeping these roads in top shape would be easy if it were not for the failure of some leaders to do their utmost in regularly monitoring their state, supervising works and the usual corrupt tendencies. For a start, the public needs to actively interest themselves in the state of these roads and audit the works when money is available.

Every coin of taxpayers’ money spent on public works must fetch value. Citizen vigilance is the starting point for ensuring value for money and detecting attempts to steal it. Next are the lower LC leaders: a lot can be achieved if local leaders stopped seeing themselves as too low in hierarchy to cause a visible transformation in their area. A serious LC1 unit leadership has a mandate to cause notable transformation at the village/cell level because that is where the people are.

And with PDM, when LC1 and LC2 (parish/ ward) leaders seriously co-operate, transformation can be faster because seed capital reaches the locals to produce more goods. Monetary support to PDM beneficiaries and funding for public social services go together in empowering grassroots-based life improvement.

I urge the Ministry of Local Government and that of works and transport to jointly start identifying model lower LCs that best utilise road funds and use their example to inspire others. That aside, now that we are at the throes of a transition into a new term of office, there may be political disruption, which calls for keener vigilance by wananchi and state agencies. How? Some local leaders who lost elections can connive with engineers to divert the funds. Money has been released as the current term of office is heading to its end. The taamu egenda (the term is ending) bug has never left some of our people. While leaving office, they lose the morale to work and devise means to earn a quick last buck, some sort of “terminal benefit” for themselves. That is where they start harassing engineers or conniving with them to steal the funds.

On the other hand, newly elected leaders may be ignorant about road fund utilisation. Within that transition window, crafty technocrats (not just in the roads sector) could take advantage and raid the funds pool, counting on the naivety of their new bosses.

Well, the Government is a big machine. It can detect all this mischief and take action at any stage. However, the ideal is for citizens to know that funds for given projects have been released and participate in auditing their utilisation. It is also hoped that newly elected leaders were identified because they are patriotic, incorruptible, profess zero tolerance to corruption, and, consequently, can identify staunchly with the mission of the head of state — to take Uganda to upper middle-income status by 2030. That is a sure way to protect the gains!

The writer is the special presidential assistant-press and mobilisation/deputy presidential spokesperson faruk.kirunda@statehouse.go.ug