Uganda National Roads Authority

End of Financial year

2015/16
MEDIA BRIEFING. #ACCOUNTABILITY #UNRAWORKS

Thursday, 30th June 2016 ; UNRA Headquarters

BACKGROUND

The Uganda National Roads Authority, an organization established by

an Act of Parliament, started its operations in July 2008. This means
that it will be celebrating its 8th birthday on 1 st July. The organization
was established to implement Governments policy of
commercialization and privatization of core functions that can be
transferred from central government to specialized service providers.
By doing so, it would introduce market discipline, efficiency and
effectiveness to functions that had hitherto suffered from the lack of a
proper incentive structure and a low level of accountability and
productivity.

During this time, the Authority was able to develop, maintain and
manage the national road network which currently stands at
20,544km, as the Act requires. However, the more recent reports by
the Office of the Auditor General (OAG), IGG and more recently the
Commission of Enquiry had revealed systemic failures, inadequate
governance and lack of staff capacity within the organisation. As a
result, public and stakeholder perception of the organisations
business appears to have been at the lowest in 2014.

In May 2015, I was appointed the Executive Director of UNRA by the

Hon. Minister of Works and Transport and I was tasked with improving

its performance by turning it into an efficient organisation that provides

a service that is responsive to the needs of the public. Informed by the
prior reviews and a diagnosis of the organisations business
operations, I immediately embarked on designing and implementing
fundamental changes of how business is to be conducted in order to
help cope with the expectations of the public and the business
environment. With the support of the Governing Board of Directors
(BoD) of UNRA, I have been able to implement changes which are
part of the long term transformation plan.
The long term transformation plan which comprises key priority
policies and programmes will seek to radically improve the
performance of the organisation by changing behaviour, improving
capacity and realigning the long term strategies for delivering a
service which is more effective.
Most notably, this transformation necessitated the immediate
restructuring of the organisation to ensure that sufficient and
appropriate resources, especially human are provided for and that the
necessary safeguards and governance structures are put in place.

I therefore wish to provide the key highlights of the performance of the

organisation in the year 2015/16, and provide an insight for the year
2016/17.

THE RESTRUCTURING OF UNRA

In September 2015, the UNRA BoD approved a new structure which
would help to increase and realign the resources and business
operations to the expected outputs both in quality and quantity as
well as introduce sustainable good governance. The new structure
almost doubled the required staff number to 1,740. The macro
structure comprises the BoD, Executive Director and 9 Directorates.

Since the then structure had been dissolved, all existing staff were
therefore given notice of termination on 30th September 2015, reason
being the organisational restructuring, and all their severance and
terminal benefits paid, in accordance with the Human Resource
Manual and the laws. A recruitment exercise to fill all positions started
with assessing all existing staff and retaining those who were
competent, hardworking and with unquestionable integrity. This
rigorous internal recruitment, together with a headhunting exercise for
those with exceptional skills in the market was successful in retaining
the good staff and bringing on board those with known proven
performance.

Following external advertisement of 111 positions in January 2016, we

received 45,000 applications which were sorted according to the job
positions.

As a result of both the internal and external recruitment, all Senior

Management positions have been filled with substantial recruitment of
the Middle Management staff. We now have a total of 892 members of
staff recruited as of today, with 30% of these expected to start working
in July/August 2016.We hope to recruit an additional 400 members of
staff in the FY 2016/17 and to fill the remaining positions in 2018.

EXECUTIVE DUTIES
This year, my office has prioritised mainly supporting the new
Management in ensuring that the transition period is carried out
successfully and that the new leaders in the organisation (Directors,
Heads & Managers) are prepared well to take up their new roles
through a well-structured induction and leadership training
programme.

We have now commenced the process of envisioning and drawing

strategies which will help us deliver the organisations mandate. We
have increased our engagements and consultations with the
stakeholders, particularly Government and the Development Partners
to share our plans and to re-instil confidence and reassurance that the
changes being made are long term and are intended to make UNRA a
more efficient organisation. In addition to promoting transparency, we
are making a deliberate effort to have more effective communication
with the public through different media channels and interactions like
this one.
We have put in place systems and processes which will help us
deliver the services more efficiently but with integrity at the forefront of
our method of working. An Investigation and Compliance Department
was established to promote ethics and integrity and has been very
useful in guiding staff and our stakeholders in how to conduct
themselves while transacting UNRA business.

PERFORMANCE OF UNRA IN THE YEAR 2015/16

The performance in terms of outputs has been medium and is not the
desirable standard measure. This is because of the restructuring
exercise which has taken almost all year and resulted in losing a
significant number of staff and recruiting new ones. This means that
for half of the year we have been serving with only about 1/3 of the

required staff numbers. We hope that performance will increase in the

next year as more staff are brought on board and better systems are
established.
Financial Performance
UNRA receives funding, for its recurrent expenditure and development
from Government of Uganda (GoU) with the support of the
Development Partners. This is used mainly for the design,
rehabilitation and improvement of the paved roads and upgrading or
construction of new roads.
In addition, UNRA receives funding from the Uganda Road Fund
mainly for the maintenance of the road network. All funds are released
on a quarterly basis.

This ending FY 2015/16, we received 65% of the development and

90% of the road maintenance budget that was allocated to the UNRA
Vote while the balance was not released by MFPED and Uganda
Road Fund respectively. All funds which were released for the above
activities were utilised, yet with a debt UGX 259.3 billion in unpaid
invoices for works completed within the year. UNRA will pay for these
outstanding invoices using next years budget, hence reducing the
funds available for the 2016/17 programme by the same amount.

Network Planning & Engineering

This Directorate which was restructured to undertake studies and
design of roads and bridges has been able to undertake several
designs of roads using the consultants but in addition, an inhouseteam has undertaken studies/designs for the following roads:
1.

Masodde Nkooko Nalweyo Road with a spur from Nkooko to

Nalweyo (98Kms);

2.

Nakalama-Tirinyi-Mbale (100km)

Namunsi-Kapchorwa (28km)
With increased capacity and with the support of the consultants, the
design portfolio will increase in the next FY. The list of roads that have
been designed this FY is Annexed.

Road Development
We have upgraded approximately 238km of road from unpaved to
paved bituminous standard, bringing the total paved road network to
4,157km (20%) out of the 20,544km, while the rehabilitation of 252km
of the paved roads has been completed.
UNRA is now undertaking in-house Construction and Supervision of
road projects. This year, the department has supervised the following
road construction projects:
1.

Moroto Town Roads

2.

Koboko, Maracha town roads

Moroto Nakapiripirit road

1.

Kawempe-Kafu overlay
The Construction unit is in the offing awaiting acquisition of
equipment.
The critical challenges in the development of roads and bridges have
been:

Delayed Payments to Contractors and Suppliers attracting

interest

Delayed Land Acquisition and Expropriation of Land attracting

claims

Inadequacies in designs necessitating design reviews and

updates.

Staffing Challenges in Land Acquisition.

Delayed procurements affecting project implementation

Inadequate funding for some projects

Poor performance of Contractors and Consultants which resulted

in very poor compliance with the environmental and social safeguards.
In December 2015, due to the project implementation challenges on
the upgrading of Kamwenge-Fort Portal Road, the World Bank
cancelled the credit which was financing the road project through the
Transport Sector Development Project and suspended financing for
the Albertine Region Sustainable Development Project (KyenjojoKabwoya) and NERAMP (OPRC on Tororo-Mbale-Soroti-Kamdini).
This was a set-back that affected progress on the Bank financed
projects due to cash-flow challenges as GoU had to step in to finance
the remaining works for the Kamwenge-Fort Portal Road. We have
made significant progress in improving contract and social safeguards

management and hope that the World Bank will be able to lift the
suspension for the two projects financing Kyenjojo-Kabwoya and the
OPRC on Tororo-Kamdini roads in July 2016. It should be noted that
UNRA is putting more emphasis and is committed to establishing
lasting systems for sustainable improvement in place and not one-off
solutions to a problem.

Road Network Operation and Maintenance

We were able to undertake significant maintenance activities on the
paved and unpaved road network. However the network suffered two
heavy rain seasons this FY which ravaged some structures and
washed away pavements resulting in a number of cut-offs which
required emergency intervention to restore the network to full
functionality.
Limited financing for the maintenance of roads and bridges still
remains a challenge. UNRA receives an annual budget from Uganda
Road Fund amounting to 246.9 Billion to fund road maintenance and
road network operations activities. However this budget is inadequate
to fund all the necessary activities to keep the network in good
condition and fully functional. The budget requirement for
maintenance including improvement of the 10,000km of additional
network to 1st class gravel is 600 Billion. With sufficient funding, we

would be able to upgrade at least 3,400km un-engineered roads to 1st

class gravel roads per year.

The operations activities include Vehicle load control, Ferry Services,

Traffic and Road safety and Enforcement which are intended to keep
the network fully functional at all times. The enforcement department
is helping to protect the road infrastructure which has always been
vandalised and the road reserves encroached on. This year has not
been very busy but we shall see increased activities in the next FY
when recruitment of more officers has been substantially completed.
We have increased the number of ferry crossings from six (2008) to
nine (2015) and replaced the aged ferries at three sites with a new
ferry with a higher capacity at Wanseko-Panyimur crossing on Albert
Nile.

PLANS FOR 2016/17

The development (mainly construction of new roads) budget is
allocated approximately 90% of all funding provided to UNRA while
7% has been allocated to the maintenance of roads. This means that
the performance of UNRA, financially, is highly dependent on the
performance and progress of the road development projects. While

the Government road development programme has been growing,

Medium Term Expenditure Framework (MTEF) ceiling for UNRA vote
has been the same. This has resulted in the ongoing and planned
programme having a deficit of UGX 1.7 trillion. Due to the budget
constraints, there are therefore no new key projects to be financed by
GOU commencing in the coming Financial Year. All effort will be
concentrated on ensuring that Government gets Value for Money from
the investment in the ongoing projects through improved management
and supervision of projects while engagement with the Development
Partners to support the programme continues. Works will continue
through the year on at least the 1,000km of ongoing projects with the
allocated funds. With the availed funding, it is hoped that 200km of
paved roads will be added to the network and 185km of roads
rehabilitated. Tendering will continue and shall be completed upto
contract award for the planned 1,000km of roads for rehabilitation and
upgrading. Contracts will be signed for projects for which funding is
available. In addition, the ongoing works on the bridges will continue
as shown in the Annex. Focus will also be on improving the systems
and processes for better efficiency in operations and in the
development and management of the network.

CHALLENGES
The current funding for the road maintenance and development
programme is insufficient. With a 1,477km of maintenance backlog for

the paved roads, Government would have to progressively double the

financing of the maintenance budget to reinstate the roads to
maintainable state. In addition, the 10,000km of unpaved roads would
have to be upgraded to at least 1st class gravel roads and to remove
the bottlenecks which create the emergency situations annually.
UNRA is currently designing and implementing a Government road
development programme which is short by at least UGX 1.7 trillion.
The successful implementation of the entire programme will depend
on the financing availed in the coming and the subsequent years.

CONCLUSIONS
As UNRA celebrates 8 years of existence and the achievements
attained so far, we use this time to reflect on the past, to help us
shape our future better. There is no doubt that the past 1 year has
been a difficult one to us, to the road users and to the sector at large
considering the events that have occurred, i.e. the restructuring of the
organisation which resulted in some functions being suspended, the
El-nino rains which ravaged the road network, the suspension and
cancellation of World Bank financing among others yet the public
expectations remain high.

Despite all the challenges the paved road network has increased by
238km and the network has been maintained in generally good
condition throughout the year.
Management is committed to building in-house capacity and seeing
that all our initiatives succeed in introducing efficiency and
effectiveness of our business next FY onwards.
I remain confident that the effort, progress and changes made thus far
are an important step towards a lasting solution to the prevailing
problems that have prevented the organisation from providing a road
network that our road users and the public demand for. Our long term
desire is to provide a great road network that will provide great driver
experience and one that will take Uganda to higher economic
development levels.
I thank you!

Allen C. Kagina
Executive Director, Uganda National Roads Authority