KAMPALA – Kampala Capital City Authority Council – KCCA has summoned the head of its technical wing, Dorothy Kisaka to expound how Ugx1.06trn – meant for road construction will be utilised.
The African Development Bank extended a $288b loan facility to KCCA, to construct roads and drainage systems in the city under the Kampala City Roads Rehabilitation Project –KCRRP whose works are expected to start this month.
The City’s Central Executive Committee -CEC in report indicated that the technical team had allocated up to Ugx15b as the cost of constructing a kilometre.
“The roads under KCRRP will cost approximately a whopping Ugx15.4b. This is exorbitantly high when compared to the standard unit cost in the region,” read, the report in parts.
During a council meeting held on Thursday, the 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 $194m (about Ugx717.8b), resulting in a saving of $52m (about192.4b). From the fore-going, it is clear that from a simplistic view, the unit cost per kilometre for the above scope of civil works would be about $2.78m, which translates into about Ugx10.2b per kilometre.”
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 Ugx15.4b per kilometre.
Council resolved to summon Kisaka – concluding that her deputy had failed to respond to some of their concerns – demanding that she appears on February 15 in the company of the contractors who were awarded the works.