In the event of the tolling exercise on Kampala-Entebbe express, the Government of Uganda has collected Ush2.5 billion in the first month.
The tolling exercise commenced on January 8, 2022 required motorists on the road to pay between Ush5000 and Ush18000 depending on their size of their vehicle.
According to Stephen Kitenga, the head of Communications at UNRA, one billion Shillings was collected in the first week of tolling at the three gates located in Mpala, Busega, and Kajjansi. This money came from over 160000 passengers.
An average of 20,000 passages are made every day through the three toll gates on the expressway, up from the projected daily average of 13,000 passages and these include incoming and outgoing air passengers, taxi operators, visitors and Entebbe residents.
According to Allan Ssempebwa, a communications officer at UNRA, the actual daily passages have so far surpassed their projections which at the time were made before toll fees were arrived at.
“We hope that the numbers grow even higher because we will use the toll collections to repay the loan for constructing the road and also for its operations and maintenance,” he said.
The collection will be used to repay the 350 million USD loan acquired from the Exim Bank of China to construct the 51.4-kilometer expressway. According to the loan agreement, the repayment schedule runs from July 21, 2019, to January 21, 2032.
In the 13-year repayment period, the government plans to pay 26.8 million US Dollars (about Ush95 billion Shillings) every year. It should be able to collect at least Sh7.8 billion per month to meet the loan obligation.
Ssempebwa is optimistic that the collections will increase when streetlights are installed on the expressway. “We want to ensure road user satisfaction on the expressway so on top of security patrols, free towing services, we are going to address the issue of darkness along the road by installing streetlights latest April this year.”
This will strengthen the sense of security on the road.
