Uganda news update – Loan approvals for Nile bridge and new Entebbe Highway rushed to parliament

‘NEW ENTEBBE HIGHWAY’ FUNDING GOES BEFORE PARLIAMENT

The rush is now on to get as much work still done in parliament before its term expires and the ministry of works and transport handed the house a request to be permitted to borrow 350 million US Dollars from China for the financing of the new planned Entebbe highway yesterday.

However, as the request first has to be passed by the respective committees, and verbal storms been raised already in parliament about the massive demands by government for additional supplementary budget allocations, this matter may not see the light of day and be re-tabled when the new parliament has been sworn in. At the same time did the ministry also request to borrow over 100 million US Dollars from Japan towards the construction of the second Nile bridge in Jinja. Both projects are urgently required to ensure transportation safety and combat the growing traffic jams on Entebbe road during rush hour, when the bottle neck entrance point at the Clock Tower into the central business district delays traffic at times by hours, occasionally even making travelers miss flights out of Entebbe as they are stuck in long queues of vehicles trying to get out of the city.

The new highway, and very likely also the new bridge, will be ‘toll roads’ where users have to dish out money to be able to drive on, but few will mind a few bob a day considering the time which can be saved in the process. With Kampala City now under a Chief Executive, and a new cabinet position being created to oversee the city politically, new momentum is expected to propel the city’s traffic management into the 21st century so that visitors arriving in and departing from the capital will get better impressions than the current traffic jams.