70 percent of Ugandans have expressed concern over inadequate
consultations, especially on public infrastructure projects.
Citizens say while they expect to be informed about the government
infrastructure projects coming up in their areas, they are not consulted at
all.
This is according to a study on the public perceptions of infrastructure
works in the country.
The study was conducted by CoST Uganda National Survey exercise. CoST
is an Infrastructure Transparency Initiative under Uganda Chapter of
Multi-Stakeholder Group –MSG that aims at promoting transparency by disclosing
data from public infrastructure investment.
It was commissioned in October 2018 and concluded in April 2019 in
the districts of Kampala, Wakiso, Jinja and Gulu.
The public also contend that public works often disrupt businesses
and in some cases leads to destruction of property coupled with delayed or no
compensation.
The survey according to Olive Kabatwairwe the CoST Uganda Programme
Coordinator was intended to measure citizens’ levels of satisfaction on the way
public infrastructure works in Uganda are delivered.
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76 per cent of those interviewed in Northern Uganda said they were
not satisfied at all about the level of participation in public projects such as road construction.
Meanwhile, 67% in Eastern Uganda said they were not satisfied at
all while those unsatisfied in Central Uganda accounted to 70%.
Majority citizens said they would want to be involved at project
identification, project implementation and preparation/design.
According to the survey, citizens complained about inadequate
display of basic project information on sites, as well as caution messages.
While communities held expectations that they would be employed on
infrastructure projects, they expressed lack of satisfactory knowledge as a
limitation to the opportunities the projects would offer.
Engineer Nathan Byanyima, the Chairperson CoST Uganda says
government should develop a policy to ensure that information on all procurement especially for public infrastructure projects is made public and
the citizens involved at all levels.
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According to Byanyima, besides lack of information, citizens are
less concerned about the projects being implemented in their area.
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He adds that once citizens are not involved, cases of shoddy works
will remain rampant.
