Africa-Press – Uganda. Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) has announced that work on about 70kms of roads in the city will commence next month, which is sweet music to the ears, but a look at list of firms that have been handed the contracts is quite disturbing.
According to a communication sent out by KCCA, the contract for roads in Lot 1 has been awarded to China State Engineering Corporation; those in Lot 2 to Zhejing Communications Construction Group; those in Lot 3 to China Railway 18th Bureau Group Company Limited and; those in Lot 5 to China Communications Construction Company Limited.
The contract for roads in Lot 4 is yet to be handed out. According to KCCA, they are still going through the procurement process, but if the allocations in those other four lots is anything to go by, it is clear that that too will be going to a foreign firm.
This is not new. It seems to be following in a trend. Contracts for major roads and bridges that have previously been awarded by the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) have mostly gone to foreign firms.
One will, for example, notice that Rukooge Enterprises and Ms Terrain Services, were the only local firms on a list of 13 contractors who worked on a set of 13 roads that were completed in 2017.
A look at the scope of work will further reveal that when the local contractor are lucky to be considered for any work, it is usually the small projects – the ones that are worth a few millions and not the billons that the foreign firms end up with.
We have nothing against the foreign firms, but we find it strange that local procurement teams have a penchant for foreign firms.
They seem inclined to knocking local firms out of the procurement processes by coming up with designs and requirements that disadvantage them. What befell President Museveni’s calls for the country to build local capacity?
Besides, the effects of such actions on the economy are well known. Finance minister Matia Kasaija warned as far back as 2017 that all the Shs3.6 trillion that the country was annually spending on infrastructure was going to foreign firms, which explained why there was always a shortage of money in the economy. The flight of capital impedes economic development and affects our living standards.
We cannot achieve economic development, improve living standards and build capacity if we continue shutting local firms out of where the real money is.
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