By Andrew Cohen Amvesi
ARUA
The poor state of Arua-Nebbi-Pakwach-Karuma road that connects the region to DRC and South Sudan is affecting the lives and health of its users.
The road which has developed huge potholes is now a death trap to many thus making its usage a big challenge to the people especially those living in Arua and West Nile at large.
Denis Alitema, a businessman who frequently uses the road decried its terrible state, saying these days, one takes longer time on the road than before due to its poor condition.
“This road is in a terrible state really, there are so many potholes. I think the road needs some renovation because it is terrible, not even renovation may be, the whole road needs to be upgraded because the tarmac has worn-out. If you take a journey from Arua to Okollo, it is just around 65km but we normally take two hours because of these potholes otherwise it used to be a 30 minutes’ drive,” Alitema said.
He said the road is so tiresome, stressful and disgusting to its users because it delays them a lot.
Franko Inzi, a truck driver said his vehicle usually breaks-down on the road due to the numerous potholes which forces him to spend more money on repairs than when the state was good.
He also noted that the road is so tiresome and that it delays their trips so much with most drivers finding it very difficult to make return journeys.
“At times, when you try to dodge the potholes, you find yourself almost causing accidents on the road. So, we are requesting the government to consider working on this road right from Arua to Karuma so that it saves our lives and also makes our work easier,” Inzi appealed.
During a tour of the road over the weekend, Jackson Atima Lee Buti, the Arua Central Division MP said they have raised the issue of the road on the floor of Parliament, engaged Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), wrote to the Ministry of Works and Transport but the state of the road has still remained the same.
Atima noted that the road has been neglected yet it leads to the two neighboring countries of DR Congo and South Sudan hence bringing in a lot of foreign income to the country.
“The road from Pakwach to Nebbi is under construction but as I speak now, the contractor is not on ground, the road has stalled and we are wondering what is happening. When we engaged UNRA, the engineers told us that the road from Nebbi to Arua is under design but in the meantime, we appealed that let there be maintenance, let there be rehabilitation on the road,” Atima said.
He revealed that the government gave over shs1 billion and a contractor was contracted to maintain the stretch from Nebbi to Arua but there is almost nothing being done on the ground.
“Every time I come and find the status of the road the same, I move to the UNRA station manager of West Nile who is based in Arua and he calls the contractor and the contractor tells us that he is coming to do work, he is coming; he will come and do some 200m of maintenance on the road, filling some few patches here and there and he disappears. I have moved to that office four times but this work has remained like this yet money has been given by the government to this contractor,” Atima explained.
He noted that the people of Arua used to use 7-8 hours in a bus to Kampala those days but now they use 12 hours due to the poor state of the road.
Atima appealed to President Museveni to first track and put UNRA to task so as to find out what is going on about the Arua to Karuma road.
“Today, as we start 2024, I appeal to the Fountain of Honor that something should be done on the road. By the way, as I talk now, it is not only the poor state of the roads in West Nile, even the Bridge at Pakwach is at stake. Recently, there was flooding and that bridge developed cracks all over. One day, this region will be cut off from the country, what are we going to do, how are we going to get the foreign income that we have been getting?” Atima asked.
However, our effort to get a comment from UNRA officials yielded no tangible result as Ahmad Okwir, the UNRA Arua Station Manager told this reporter in his office that he first needs clearance from Allan Ssempebwa, the UNRA Public Relations Officer before commenting on the matter.
We equally failed to access Ssempebwa on phone as most of our numerous calls to him went unanswered by press time.
