Members of Parliament from Kampala have given the government a two-week deadline to repair the city’s roads and drainage infrastructure.
The MPs have promised to organise protests if the government does not restore the roads and fix potholes on the city’s roadways in the next two weeks.
According to the MP Rubaga North Abubaker Kawalya, the house will not sit back and watch Ugandans suffer with a government that can fix the roads.
“We are giving them an ultimatum of a maximum of two weeks to work on most of the challenges that have affected our people, most especially when it comes to flooding. We all know what causes flooding; the status and quality of our drainage are in a bad state,” Kawalya said.
Allan Ssewanyana, MP for Makindye West, said that despite Kampala being the country’s capital and the main source of taxes, the government has neglected to focus on the problem with the city’s roads and drainage channels.
“The people in Kampala are paying too much in taxes, and as such, they expect some outcome, like better roads in the city. As leaders, we shall not sit back and watch Kampala go down, especially on the issues concerning drainage and roads,” Ssewanyana said.
He noted that some roads do not look anything like what a road ought to look like, and most of them have potholes.
“We have roads that aren’t roads; if you look at the potholes in Kampala, they are clocking close to 9,440 sq km, which means almost 90% of the roads in Kampala have potholes,” he added.
Last month, Parliament approved two loan facilities worth Shs2.2 trillion from the World Bank and the French Government for road construction projects in Kampala Metropolitan.
On September 20, 2023, heavy rains flooded Kampala, and water was seen invading buildings, homes, and some cars.
