Maintenance of National Roads: What are the key challenges?
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Date
2019
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Budget Monitoring and Accountability Unit
Abstract
Uganda has a total road network of 146,000Km of which 21,544km (14.8%) are national roads. These are under the management of Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA). Of these, 4,551Km (22.2%) are paved, while 16,003Km (77.8%) are unpaved. National roads host more than 80% of the average daily road traffic on the Ugandan road network and are a strong driver for social-economic development. To sustain this development and realize long term benefits, it is essential that national roads are adequately maintained.
The Government of Uganda (GoU) has made deliberate efforts to ensure that roads are maintained. In 2010, GoU established the Uganda Road Fund (URF), with an overall purpose of ensuring that all public roads are maintained at all times through the provision of adequate and stable financing to implementing agencies.
Maintenance of national roads is funded through the National Roads Maintenance Programme (NRM) which is implemented by UNRA using both Force Account and contracting. UNRA has recorded some achievements, but under a constrained environment.
This policy brief presents the implementation gaps in the maintenance of national roads using force account and contracting, and highlights recommendations.