By Igah Kyambadde
The Kampala Capital City Authority council has summoned KCCA executive director Dorothy Kisaka to explain how the technical team allocated over Shs 1.06 trillion towards road works in Kampala city.
The African Development Bank (AfDB) extended a $288 billion loan facility to construct roads and drainage systems in the city under the Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project (KCRRP) whose civil works scheduled to start this month.
According to the report by the city’s central executive committee (CEC), the technical team allocated up to Shs 15 billion to construct a kilometre.
“The roads under KCRRP will cost approximately a whopping Shs 15.4 billion. This is exorbitantly high when compared to the standard unit cost in the region,” part of the report read.
During the council meeting held yesterday Thursday, KCCA deputy executive director David Luyimbazi told the committee that the civil works were procured after an open international competitive bidding process to ensure value for money.
“The total value of civil works contracts awarded amounted to $194 million (Shs 717.8 billion), resulting in a saving of $52 million (Shs 192.4 billion). From the foregoing, it is clear that from a simplistic view, the unit cost per kilometre for the above scope of civil works would be about $2.78 million, which translates into about Shs 10.2 billion per kilometre,” said Luyimbazi.
Luyimbazi added “even from a simplistic view, it is therefore not true and quite misleading to allege that the road works under the KCRRP will cost Shs 15.4 billion per kilometre.”
The council agreed to summon Kisaka because her deputy had failed to respond to some of the concerns. She was summoned together with the contractors who were awarded the works. Kisaka and the contractors will appear on 15 February.
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