Related Articles
BY EDWARDS AKAKI
MOROTO: SATURDAY, JULY 30, 2022
The traders in Moroto central business area known as Camp Swahili have welcomed the ongoing construction of reads under the Uganda support to municipal infrastructure development (USMID) program with excitement.
These are the upgrading of the two streets of Jie and Lopeduru in Moroto Municipality from earth surface to Asphalt, connecting the central business area with the new Moroto central market.
The roads are designed to have dual carriage ways with sidewalks, designated loading and offloading parking areas and street lights.
There is a sigh of relief amongst the business community that with a clear road and functional night street lights, there will be improved security which will enable them to transact business during night hours without fear.
Daniel Onyii, a Phone repairer and accessories business manager dubbed ‘Rodye Phone Doctors’ welcomed the development saying he plans to begin working late into the nights without fear of theft or disturbance from the warriors since the street lights are expected to shine throughout the night.
This is the first time Moroto has benefited from the USMID road projects and the community has high hopes that more of such projects will be coming to Karamoja sub-region.
Agnes Akello, a produce dealer along Lopeduru road commonly known as Labour lane, expects better delivery of her goods from Soroti due the parking lane designed which will ease offloading and loading of the luggage.
However, she appealed to the contractor to speed up the works as it has been long overdue since the roadworks started in mid last year.
The sh7 billion project has a 0.8km stretch of the road having two carriage ways, a riding lane, two walkways and a parking lane.
It is being constructed by a Ugandan based construction company, Abubaker Technical Services, under the supervision of another locally based company, Segamu-14 and Hersun consultancy firm, on behalf of Moroto Municipal Council.
The project which is expected to be completed and handed over on the October 11, 2022 has had some stumbles in relation to the timing due complications in the redesigning process, especially the section of the road said to be passing over an underground river.
“I have been operating my bar normally but ever since the demolition in this area to clear the way for road construction, there are no ongoing works on this side of Jie road yet the other side (Lopeduru) is now almost finished. The contractor keeps saying the design is still under review but our businesses is affected,” Martin Kioko, a businessman in Moroto complained.
According to the Moroto Municipality Development Forum president, Simon Peter Nangiro, the delays on construction of Jie road has been due to the fact that during the feasibility studies the existence of an underground river was not captured.
He said this led to redesign of the project and a consequent increase in contract sum by sh875million but which has not been approved by the municipal council and USMID to allow the contractor to begin implementation.
“The standard of the road will be first class (Asphaltic concrete pavement) and the houses that will be constructed along these streets must cope up with that standard,” Nangiro said.
