MPs Kimosho, Pachuto demand action as roads crisis sparks voter backlash

Incumbent Kazo County MP Dan Kimosho may have secured victory in the National Resistance Movement (NRM) primaries, garnering 29,374 votes (61 percent) and defeating four challengers, but his spirit remains unsettled.

Speaking on the floor of Parliament on Tuesday, July 29, 2025, Kimosho expressed concern that the stakes for incumbents are growing ever higher, largely due to the country’s deteriorating road infrastructure.

He noted that while Parliament had previously instructed the works ministry to submit a detailed report on the matter ahead of recess, the submission was disappointingly vague and overly generalised.

“The issue of roads is so serious. That it is making this Government, our Government, look very ugly. When we were handling rationalisation, at some point, I thought there was someone who had planned to overthrow this Government by taking a wrong decision,” Kimosho stated. 

“No wonder the minister for works (Ecweru) fell victim,” he added.

Citing a road in his constituency, he questioned how long it should take for it to be fixed.

“For the last three months, they tell you, the documents are ready and the contract is awarded, we are waiting for a call off. Every time you ask, they tell you,' We are following up on the papers, we don’t know where the papers disappeared'. What kind of ministry is this where papers can disappear for two months and a call-off cannot come out?” Kimosho wondered.

“And people start speculating that Parliament is the one sharing money for roads. Because we have been making rounds in these constituencies. Theories have developed. Because there are roads that are supposed to be maintained, routine maintenance at least once or twice a year, no one has maintained them,” he pointed out.

And because nature abhors a vacuum, the rumour mill deep down in Kazo has it that these funds were shared by Parliamentarians.

“Because no one explains this problem, people are saying Parliament is sharing money for roads. Someone must come out because when someone in my village in Kazo does not see a road, he looks at a member of parliament. You don’t explain anything else. And for us, when they (works) come here, they start speaking in tongues, English and offering no solutions. No way forward, no timelines, nothing absolutely,” he fumed.

Now that Parliament has directed the works ministry, headed by Gen. Katumba Wamala, to table a report on the matter, Kimosho insists it must be clearly structured. Clearly outlining national highways, roads with outstanding debts, those under routine maintenance, those with active contracts and those under emergency (callout) works, instead of placing blame on MPs.  

“You will even find that the money we send for maintenance of roads, the roads that were meant to be for UNRA, are not being maintained. So, we don’t know who is supposed to maintain those roads since UNRA is no more?” Speaker Anita Among wondered.

Uganda National Roads Authority was dissolved late last year and staff mainstreamed into the parent ministry. Earlier on, Among had decried encountering bad roads while traversing Uganda recently.

Pakwach highway

However, Pakwach Woman MP Jane Avur Pachuto (NRM) says she is yet to see the worst.

“How I wish you moved on the roads of Northern Uganda. To start from Karuma to Pakwach. You can’t believe what is on the road. The grass has grown taller than me. The potholes. When you move to Pakwach district, the road from Panyimur to Pakwach to Wadelai, we have lost people within this period of time,” Pachuto stated.

“We re-allocated money to Ministry of Works, almost four months ago. But nobody even takes the burden to explain to Ugandans why the UNRA roads are not being worked on,” she added.