The Leader of Opposition in Parliament, Joel Ssenyonyi, has criticised the government of Uganda for failing to prioritise the roads in Kampala, stating that they are in a sorry state.

He made the remarks on February 1, 2024, during a guided tour undertaken on Kampala roads. Alongside the Shadow Cabinet and the city Lord Mayor, Erias Lukwago, the tour was aimed at assessing the current status of roads in Kampala, beginning with Salama Road in Makindye division.

According to Ssenyonyi, the challenge is that when people raise their voices about the situation of the roads, the government decides to place emphasis on calming down those who are making noise.

“Can we have our priorities right? The roads in Kampala are so bad; that’s why we say, Let’s come with the media so that we see what exactly is happening,” Ssenyonyi said.

He further added that the current Salama road is now Marram with a few stones, yet it used to be a Tarmac, and the same applies to other roads in the city. He claimed that the mandate of the tour is to ensure the government fixes the roads as the first priority for service delivery in the business sector.

In the same development, the Lord Mayor Kampala appealed to Parliament to provide adequate funding to the Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) to extend to 100 roads, but also ensure the African Development Bank does not cancel the loan.

He stated that the African Development Bank warned that it would cancel the $288 million loan by February 1, 2024, if the challenges it identified, like a lack of accountability and delays in constructing roads, were not addressed.

On January 29, 2024, the Ministry of Finance announced that Ugx 20 billion had been released for the construction of city roads in the third quarter of the current 2023/24 financial year.