Africa-Press – Uganda. The Uganda Road Fund (URF) is seeking Shs231.33 billion towards road maintenance across the country.
URF executive director Andrew Naimanye made the request to the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Finance, Mr Ramathan Ggoobi, in an April 28, 2022, letter.
Mr Naimanye noted that URF is currently operating on a budget of Shs483.03 billion for the maintenance of all public roads in Uganda.
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However, he noted that for the four quarters of FY 2021/2022, the cumulative release was Shs251.69 billion, resulting into a funding shortfall of Shs231.33 billion.
He explained that the inadequate quarterly cash releases have created financial challenges hence affecting the implementation of the planned maintenance works across the roads network.
The effects of the shortfall, Mr Naimanye said, include failure to pay contractors with more than Shs160b owed for certified works, which means the latter are unable to meet their loan obligations from the banks.
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Other effects are interests on delayed payment to contractors, failure to attend to emergencies and bottlenecks on the network due to limited funding, and continued deterioration of the road network and build-up of backlog of maintenance.
“…the purpose of this letter is to request you to release the balance of the expected annual release of Shs231, 33 billion to enable Road Fund designated agencies meet their obligations,” the letter states.
The agencies include Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra), Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), cities and districts.
Disbursements
Statistics from URF show that Unra’s annual indicative planning figure (IPF) is Shs307.93b with the annual disbursed amount of Shs165.09b, leaving a shortfall of Shs142.84b.
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Unra’s cumulative performance for this financial year is at 54 percent.
Statistics further show that cities’ IPF is10.03b with an annual disbursed amount of Shs4.67b, leaving a shortfall of Shs5.36b. Their cumulative performance is at 47 percent.
The districts’ IPF is 139.95b, with an annual disbursed amount of Shs70.26b, leaving a shortfall of 69.69b. Their cumulative performance is at 50 percent.
Overall, UFR’s performance for FY 2021/2022 currently stands at 52 percent.
Meanwhile, this newspaper has learnt that URF has disbursed funds to local governments and cities for the maintenance of various categories of roads in the fourth quarter of FY 2021/22.
In an April 13, 2022, letter addressed to all accounting officers, Mr Naimanya noted that the release of funds for the fourth quarter has been significantly scaled down due to the continued suppression of the budgets of ministries, departments and agencies (MDAs).
According to the letter, a copy of which we have seen, districts got the lion’s share with Shs6.4b. It will be shared by at least 135 districts, including their town councils and sub-counties.
Additionally, Shs850m has been released to cities while Shs1.6b has been released to at least 31 municipalities.
“The quarter four funds disbursed to you should be deployed to improve conditions of the network by use of force account to immediately implement the works schedule in your respective programmes in line with the Force Account Guidelines, August 2017,” he wrote.
However he warned them against losing the funds to garnishee orders by Uganda Revenue Authority (URA), diversion or corrupt practices.
He also ordered accounting officers of the respective district local governments to urgently transfer the funds for the town councils under their votes, saying that they (CAOs) remain accountable to URF for funds transferred to sub-agencies as agreed in the performance agreement.
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