Potholes: Uganda says to adopt Tanzania’s road-monitoring app

The Government, through the Uganda Road Fund (URF), is set to adopt an electronic road-monitoring app to help partly address the issue of potholes on the country’s aging roads.

In Tanzania, the Barabara app is used in monitoring roads and giving feedback in real-time.

Uganda intends to adopt a similar tool.

Eng. Andrew Naimanye, URF’s executive director, is also the vice-president of the Africa Road Maintenance Funds Association (ARMFA). He revealed Uganda's move on Friday during an executive committee meeting attended by heads of various road funds from Africa at the Road Fund Tower in Kampala.

African Road Maintenance heads discuss during the meeting held at Uganda Road Fund Towers in Kampala on Friday. (Photo by Colleb Mugume)

“ARMFA has been very important for Uganda, and we are learning a lot from this meeting from our colleagues in Tanzania. They mentioned the systems they got like the Barabara app," he said.

"We would also like to have the Barabara app in Uganda, whereby you see a pothole, you just send your details to the app, and we capture it and then inform our authorities to rectify."

Potholes are a ubiquitous sight on many city roads, and authorities have been on the receiving end of a barrage of criticism from the public in recent weeks over the damaged roadways.

Dr. Eng. Andrew Naimanye, the Executive Director Uganda Road Fund who is also the Vice President of the African Road Maintenance Funds Association speaking during the meeting. (Photo by Colleb Mugume)

In April this year, President Yoweri Museveni directed the finance ministry to disburse sh6b to the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) for the urgent repair of potholes and general road maintenance.

The President also instructed KCCA to give regular updates on the cleanup, repair and maintenance of city roads.

In the first week of last month (June), Justus Akankwasa, the acting director of the KCCA's directorate of engineering, told Parliament's committee on commissions, statutory authorities and state enterprises (COSASE) that they had hoped to have completed the sealing of potholes by then, but that the rainy season had come in the way of that target.

He told the MPs on the committee that they had achieved 70% of their target.

But the legislators, including Nakawa West MP Joel Ssenyonyi, expressed their doubts that that much work had been done.

KCCA executive director Dorothy Kisaka told New Vision in May this year that one of their biggest hurdles has been the roads that have outlived their lifespan and need complete reconstruction.

She underlined the need for the KCCA budget for road maintenance to be significantly bumped up.

Traffic congestion in Kampala that is as a result of, among other things, a poor road network has compounded the potholes problem.

According to the World Bank's report of 2017, Uganda loses over $800m (about sh2.9 trillion) annually due to delays and resources wasted in traffic jams.

Meanwhile, during Friday's meeting in Kampala, the African road fund leaders exchanged ideas on how to improve their respective road networks.

This ARMFA meeting was for the East African focal group, which includes Djibouti, Ethiopia, Kenya, Tanzania, Rwanda, Burundi, Uganda, and Zanzibar."

Uganda was previously the chair of the regional focal group.