The Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) law enforncement after several warnings have today kicked off an operation to demolish structures erected within gazatted road reserves along national roads.
The roads body says in some instances the encroachment has been extended to the walkways, road shoulders and the road carriageway itself thereby posing danger to road users especially, pedestrians. This hinders the smooth flow of traffic creating traffic congestion and disorder as we now see on many roads radiating from the city centre.
UNRA executive director Allen Kagina said in a statement, ‘ .. we anticipate that this exercise will reduce congestion on our roads, reduce travel time and ensure safety of all road users.
The exercise has started from Kibuye round-about on the Kampala-Entebbe highway and progress toward Entebbe town at Kajjansi Trading Centre, where the under-construction Entebbe-Kampala Expressway intersects with the current Entebbe road.
From that side, UNRA plans to shift the phased exercise on outbound city routes to Jinja, Masaka, Mityana, Hoima and Bombo.
Structures on road reserves are illegal and the encroachers will not be compensated, officials said.
Road reserve
A road reserve, according to the colonial-era Road Act 1949, is an “area bounded by imaginary lines parallel to and distant not more than 50 feet (about 16 metres) from the centre line of any road”.
Section 5 of the said Act mandates the Roads Authority to “remove interferences” such as unauthorised building, plants/crops, access lanes, cattle paths and bicycle tracks from the roads which technically includes the carriageway, separators (island), shoulders, drainage channels, side-walks and road reserves.
