EA to blacklist and deny bad contractors jobs in the region

Heads of road authorities in the region have expressed disgust at fake contractors and pledged that they would adopt a regional approach to blacklist them and deny them jobs to protect the region.

The officials meeting for the first time under their umbrella, the Eastern Africa Regional Roads Authorities (EARRA) sought to establish plans to improve the road networks in the region. The meeting was held in Kampala on Thursday.

Allen Kagina, the executive director of Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) noted that the bogus contractors were actively eyeing road tenders in the region.

"We want to know from each other how a contractor works. Some contractors threaten that if they do not get contracts here they will go to a neighouring country, to Ethiopia, to Kenya. We want to know whether they actually go there. We want to be secure when we award contracts so that we do not lose money," Kagina said.

Kagina added that with tarmacked roads, economic activities can increase, education can improve as school children can get to school easily.

She envisioned that UNRA wants to pave 1000kms of roads a year instead of the current 180km per year if more funds were available to quickly reduce the backlog of unpaved roads.

The executive director highlighted that Uganda has 20,544Km of national roads, of which 4,157 (20%) are paved to bitumen standard while the rest are gravel. EARRA is similar to the Association of Southern Africa National Road Agencies that has been key in doing research and driving formation of road networks in Southern region.

Charles Kizito, head corporate strategy UNRA said the tarmac roads in the region had aged needing reconstruction. Kizito said the region suffered from high traffic growth despite the fact that the roads have suffered from a poor maintenance culture.