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The Minister for Local Government, Raphael Magyezi has said the new shs2.1trillion Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area Urban Development Programme (GKMA-UDP) will give the four greater Kampala districts of Mukono, Mpigi, Kampala and Wakiso a facelift.
“Kampala is extremely important for this country because it is where we have international meetings, hosts embassies, parliament, Judiciary and every aspect is here. Kampala is therefore important to this country. The challenge has been that we develop Kampala alone and the surroundings alone in silos yet this is not effective,” Magyezi said
“With this program, we want to break these silos because when water is flowing from Kampala to Bweyogerere, you can’t stop it. You can’t say, you have now reached the boundary of Kampala you should stop there. We therefore must make sure the facilities in these four districts are improved but working together.”
Magyezi was on Friday speaking during the handover of vehicles to Chief Administrative Officers and town clerks of nine district local governments and municipalities in the four districts to monitor the program.
The beneficiaries included KCCA, Entebbe, Kira, Makindye-Ssabagabo, Mukono and Nansana municipalities as well as Mukono, Mpigi and Wakiso district local governments.
The program will be financed through a $566 million (Shs2.1 trillion) from the International Development Association (IDA) of the World Bank Group.
Speaking on Wednesday, Minister Magyezi said the program will seek to connect roads, markets and drainage systems in the four districts.
“The focus of this program is about physical planning and ensuring that the entire region of Kampala in its wider sense including Wakiso, Mpigi, Entebbe and Mukono develops as an entity much as we have entities which are specific. You can’t develop Kampala without developing Mukono.”
Magyezi applauded the World Bank for the loan that will finance the program, adding that it is within the framework of Vision 2040 and the NRM manifesto.
The minister however warned town clerks and CAOs against using the vehicles for their personal errands but rather monitor the program in their respective areas.
The Minister for Greater Kampala, Hajjati Minsa Kabanda said the program will ensure the area gets a facelift and presentable to the world.
“This is our baby program in Kampala Metropolitan. Previously we have been seeing projects like road construction done in silos. You find a road is tarmacked halfway and when you ask, you are told, this is where Kampala ends, the other part which is not tarmacked in Wakiso. We want to end this,” Minister Kabanda said.
She however warned against misuse of resource during the implementation of the program.
The minister also urged that contracts for the different projects ought to first consider Ugandans.
According to Monica Edemachu Ejua, the undersecretary in the Office of the President, the program will see roads, drainage systems and markets among others constructed in the nine districts and municipalities.
“This is a five-year program intended to address the challenges of Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area including traffic congestion, planning in silos and flooding. It will improve accessibility, mobility and interconnectivity through construction of main roads where traffic flows to address the challenge of congestion,” Edemachu said.
“ We also realized that one of the biggest problems in the greater Kampala Metropolitan Area is unemployment especially for youth and women. Under this program we intend to develop markets as work spaces for these economic clusters. We shall also have institutional strengthening to build their capacity to successful implement the program.”
She said that the fleet of nine vehicles handed to municipalities and district local governments is part of the institutional strengthening to ensure they can monitor the implementation of the program.
Source ; Nile Post.co.ug