ARUA CITY LEADERS SUMMON CONTRACTOR OVER DELAYED ROAD MAINTENANCE

The project contractor appearing before the city leaders.

By Godwin Abedican
Arua City
 
The leadership of Arua city summoned the contractor who was awarded the contract of upgrading the Onduparaka-Andelizu road to answer why the commencement of road rehabilitation the delayed.
 
The 8 kilometer stretch of road awarded to Consytech Limited in 2022 was launched last year but the contractor disappeared after promising to come back after two weeks.
 
It was on Thursday May 15, 2025 when the workers arrived and began grading the road without notifying the leadership of the city after pressure began mounting from the parliament.
 
Marlon Avutia the mayor Ayivu division had no kind words for the contractor saying it was not right for him to just begin working without declaring the components of the road project.
 
“I received a team of the contractor and my expectation was that this time around when the contractor is resuming site, you will now come and pay courtesy to us so that we know you and introduce you to our staff and also tell us where we should help you. Mr. contractor I want to forgive you from my heart because when I called you yesterday, I asked you whether it will be good for us to sit at 8 in the morning, we principally agreed on phone about the time” Marlon noted.
 
“Actually, we should have stopped the operator from continuing until we sit with you. What I expected from you was that you will explain to us all the challenges you are telling us delayed you and we get to understand, which you didn’t do. I want to pray that this is not your character because we badly need this road,” Marlon warned.
 
Meanwhile, Wadri Sam Nyakua, the Mayor Arua City says accountability for projects become hard when the ministry assigns contractors from the central government because the contractors sent do not cooperate with the local leaders.
 
“The ministry gave us the contractor, but the constructor should have started works after having a meeting with us the local leaders. We should have told him what to do. For example, he is already making culverts. We don’t know the quality of those culverts because our engineers never supervised. He is making the road very narrow. We want the road to be opened once and for all so that in future we don’t have the headache of going for reopening,” Nyakua lamented.
 
However, while responding to the concerns of the leaders, Engineer Kigozi Timothy, the contractor explained that it was not intentional that he left the site even after doing a ground breaking.
 
“Due to financial constraints from the government, we were halted from going on with the work because the resource envelope was a bit constrained. We came and launched last year but still there came a transition of UNRA being amalgamated into ministry of works, so there was still a constraint and we tried working it out with the ministry and now we are fully starting the road,” Eng. Kigozi explained.
 
The rod project worth 596 Million Ugandan shillings which has to be accomplished within a period of 6sss months will see the Onduparaka-Andelizu road stretch improved as a class 2 feeder road carriage with of 5.4 meters carriage way and 2 meters shoulders graded into a marram road.