{"id":61649,"date":"2023-12-03T16:17:57","date_gmt":"2023-12-03T16:17:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/?p=61649"},"modified":"2023-12-03T15:17:21","modified_gmt":"2023-12-03T15:17:21","slug":"swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road","title":{"rendered":"Swamp eats away Kampala-Jinja road"},"content":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. <\/strong><\/span>The Kampala-Jinja highway is being eaten away by a major swamp that flows under it in Najjembe Sub-county, Buikwe District, a few kilometres after Lugazi Municipality.<\/b><\/p>\n

The development has sparked fears that torrential rains currently being experienced in the country will cause it to cave in. That will disrupt traffic along a route that is considered the main artery of Uganda\u2019s economy.<\/p>\n

Dr Timothy Batuwa, the Jinja North East MP, first raised concern about the state of the road last week, accusing the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra) and the Works ministry of not doing enough to check it.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe all know how reliant Uganda is on this road. It is our main gateway to the east and the port of Mombasa, which handles the bulk of our goods. 95 percent of our imports and exports come through it. Why is nothing being done to solve the problem?\u201d Dr Batuwa wondered.<\/p>\n

The Kampala-Jinja highway, a part of the Trans-African highway, is also considered a vital link to the sea port of Mombasa for two other landlocked countries, Burundi and Rwanda. It is also a crucial link to the sea for the eastern parts of the DR Congo.<\/p>\n

A visit to the location on Thursday revealed that the swamp is slowly growing into the surface of the road and there are no guard rails.<\/p>\n

Two red and white concrete barriers have been placed at the affected section of the road, possibly to warn motorists of the danger lurking.<\/p>\n

Mr Allan Ssempebwa Kyobe, the media relations manager at Unra, told Sunday Monitor that works on the road have already been handed to a contractor.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have a programme for the maintenance of that road. The entire project is already in the hands of a contractor. We have a work plan for each section […] All those bottlenecks are going to be quickly fixed and we have already started,\u201d Mr Ssempebwa said.<\/p>\n

In September, Unra\u2019s executive director, Ms Allen Kagina, while presenting its performance report for the financial year 2022\/2023, named the Kampala-Jinja highway as one of the two roads that had been lined up for rehabilitation. The other is the Alwii-Nebbi road.<\/p>\n

Not good enough<\/b><\/p>\n

Dr Batuwa is, however, neither pleased with the pace at which the road is being worked on nor Unra\u2019s response mechanisms. Mr Ssempebwa defended Unra, saying it always tries to make timely interventions.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhere we have finances, we try to optimally utilise them to ensure that sections of the road network that are affected by torrential rains or those where water is pushing its way into the pavement are not cut off,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Dr Batuwa also raised questions about Unra\u2019s capacity to monitor the country\u2019s road network, saying the collapse of the Katonga and Ssezibwa bridges suggest either lack of either monitoring units or monitoring capacity, which Mr Ssempebwa denied.<\/p>\n

Mr Ssempebwa said Unra has 23 road maintenance stations, which are charged with monitoring the state of the roads and making timely interventions, but added that this cannot stop damage from occurring.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe units have actually been very helpful. There are interventions which we did before the rains and that helped save much of our road network, but nature can be very disastrous. You can never predict the degree of the damage that it will cause,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Few alternatives<\/p>\n

The Mukono-Kyetume-Kisoga-Njeru route will be the only route to the east if the road caves in at Najjembe.<\/p>\n

Fears around the state of the Kampala-Jinja highway, which often suffers heavy congestion, come at a time when Uganda is left with only one other alternative route to eastern Uganda\u2014the 41 kilometre Mukono-Kyetume-Kisoga-Njeru route.<\/p>\n

The other alternative route, the Mukono-Kayunga-Jinja, was closed to heavy traffic in October after major surface defects were detected on Ssezibwa Bridge.<\/p>\n

In an October 7 statement, heavy traffic from Jinja to Kampala was advised to use either the Kampala-Jinja highway or the Njeru-Kisoga-Kyetume-Mukono routes.<\/p>\n

Heavy traffic from Kayunga to Kampala was advised to use the Kyampisi-Namataba route, while that from Luweero to Kayunga was advised to use among others the Mukono-Kalagi and Mukono-Namataba-Kyampisi routes.<\/p>\n

Back then Unra said the procurement process to identify a contractor to build a new bridge had commenced. The process has never concluded.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are expediting the procurement process because we need it to be done as fast as possible,\u201d Mr Ssempebwa told this publication.<\/p>\n

For More News And Analysis About Uganda<\/a> Follow Africa-Press<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Africa-Press – Uganda. The Kampala-Jinja highway is being eaten away by a major swamp that flows under it in Najjembe Sub-county, Buikwe District, a few kilometres after Lugazi Municipality. The development has sparked fears that torrential rains currently being experienced in the country will cause it to cave in. That will disrupt traffic along a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":61647,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,3],"tags":[233,240,234],"class_list":["post-61649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-all-news","category-community","tag-africa-press","tag-africa-press-uganda","tag-uganda"],"yoast_head":"\nSwamp eats away Kampala-Jinja road - Uganda<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"The Kampala-Jinja highway is being eaten away by a major swamp that flows under it in Najjembe Sub-county, Buikwe Dis ...\" \/>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"Swamp eats away Kampala-Jinja road\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"The Kampala-Jinja highway is being eaten away by a major swamp that flows under it in Najjembe Sub-county, Buikwe Dis ...\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Uganda\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:publisher\" content=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/AfricaPressTunisiaa\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2023-12-03T16:17:57+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2023\/12\/sm_1701603981.573306.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"1200\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"800\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"cfeditoren\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"4 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"cfeditoren\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/#\/schema\/person\/068c7ab4e9634ae78ec5d54ec46598bb\"},\"headline\":\"Swamp eats away Kampala-Jinja road\",\"datePublished\":\"2023-12-03T16:17:57+00:00\",\"mainEntityOfPage\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road\"},\"wordCount\":743,\"commentCount\":0,\"image\":{\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road#primaryimage\"},\"thumbnailUrl\":\"https:\/\/static.africa-press.net\/uganda\/sites\/34\/2023\/12\/sm_1701603981.573306.jpg\",\"keywords\":[\"Africa Press\",\"Africa Press-Uganda\",\"uganda\"],\"articleSection\":[\"all news\",\"community\"],\"inLanguage\":\"en-US\",\"potentialAction\":[{\"@type\":\"CommentAction\",\"name\":\"Comment\",\"target\":[\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road#respond\"]}]},{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/www.africa-press.net\/uganda\/all-news\/swamp-eats-away-kampala-jinja-road\",\"name\":\"Swamp eats away Kampala-Jinja road - 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