Completion of the 51km Kampala–Entebbe Expressway is to be delayed for another one year due to unresolved compensation issues.
The four-lane toll highway was meant to be completed by November 2017.
Following the tour of the project, Abbas Ali Mugisha, the civil environmental officer said they encountered a number of obstacles ranging from hard rocks and delayed compensations.
“The road will be delivered to Ugandans as promised but the issue of extending the completion dates is because of both technical and compensation issues,” Mr. Mugisha told journalists.
He said that currently, they are blasting a rock at Nalumunye which is expected to take one week while compensation for the widening of Kitala housing estate section has not yet started.
He however said by November this year, the section between Busega and Kitala will be complete and ready to use.
This delay has been more on the side of government who failed to compensate people in time, also said Li Jincheng the project manager at China Communications Construction Company Ltd (CCCC) is the contractor.
UNRA working hard
Mr. Mark Ssali, the head public and corporate affairs at the Uganda National Roads Authority (Unra), last month also confirmed that the completion date was revised to May 2018 due to compensation obstacles.
“May 2018 is an interim date. The contractor encountered obstacles and could not have the site on time. The contractor is executing works nonetheless where they have secured the right of way,” Mr Ssali said.
“There were 4,535 Project Affected Persons (PAPs) evaluated for compensation. Of these, a total number of 3,100 have been paid so far. This leaves the total number of PAPs that haven’t been paid at 1, 435.”
The project cost is $476m (about Shs1.6 trillion), money China’s Export-Import Bank has loaned Uganda. No single road infrastructure in Uganda has cost that amount of money. The cost of each Kampala-Entebbe Expressway lane per kilometer is $2.3 million. This means that the four lanes will be $2.3 million multiplied by four hence the $9.2 million per kilometer of the expressway.
