Uganda is determined to boost regional trade and security and as such, the country is prepared to invest in constructing roads in neighbouring countries.
Works Minister General Katumba Wamala has clarified this government position, following queries by MPs over the government’s seeking Shs220 billion urgently to build roads in DR Congo. The Sh 220b is part of a supplementary budget State for Finance minister David Bahati presented to MPs on Monday.
Gen Katumba Wamala has now gone further and revealed the government’s intention to build even other roads in different countries. The minister disclosed the next most likely external road to be built as one linking through South Sudan to Ethiopia. Gen Wamala was quick to state however that the Sudan-Ethiopia road is still at concept note level.
Katuma Wamala was also emphatic that the 220 billion road construction project in eastern DR Congo has nothing to do with the old $10billion debt Uganda owes DR Congo from an international court ruling against Kampala for plunder. He says this sh220 billion investment is purely for increasing trade between the two countries.
Uganda’s exports to DRC from 2018 to date have so far totaled to 533 million dollars and this is expected to more than double once the road has been constructed. The government’s move to invest so much money in building roads in another country had alarmed the MPs who wondered at the government’s priorities. Dokolo Woman MP Mama Cecilia Ogwal asked why the government doesn’t first do the roads in Uganda which are in bad shape and then move on to build roads in other countries.
