Christo Omara Balmoi, the Gulu City Engineer says that many urban roads in the City require maintenance, but they are unable to do much since Uganda Road Fund only allocated 1.299 billion shillings for road maintenance this financial year.
Gulu City Council is unable to maintain roads this financial year
2021/2022 due to inadequate funding from the Uganda Road Fund.
According to the 2018 road inventory, Gulu City Council has a
total of 483 kilometres of roads which include 54.33 kilometres of tarmac
roads, 81.87 and 136 kilometres of gravel and earth roads respectively.
Out of the 54.33 kilometres of tarmacked roads, over 30 roads
require maintenance.
Christo Omara Balmoi, the Gulu City Engineer says that many roads in the City require maintenance, but they are unable to do much since
Uganda Road Fund only allocated 1.299 billion shillings for road maintenance this
financial year.
According to Balmoi, they are focusing more on rehabilitating the
gravel roads in the annexed areas of the City and patching a few potholes on
the tarmacked roads this financial year due to the limited funding.
Robin Lapyem, the Chairman Gulu Eastern City Boda –Boda Association
says that since January, 14 members of the association died in road accidents due
to the poor state of the roads.
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Ivan Ojok, a Boda –Boda rider in Gulu City appealed to the Uganda
National Roads Authority-UNRA and Gulu City Council to also install humps in
the busy centres.
Ojok also appealed to the responsible authorities to ensure that
the narrow roads like Gulu –Juba Highway from Layibi Roundabout to Customs
Corner and Lagony road from in front of Bank of Uganda to Customs Corner are
widened to curb down the rate of accidents.
Alfred Okwonga, the Gulu City Mayor revealed that the authorities
petitioned UNRA about the narrow roads it constructed in Gulu City and that
UNRA promised to work on those roads.
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Jesse Johnson James
Freelancer
