ARUA CITY’S DRAINAGE CRISIS SPARKS URGENT ACTION TO PREVENT FLOODING, HAZARDS

Clogged Drainage Sections of Avenue Road in Arua City.

By Onzoma Albert

Arua City

Arua City is facing critical drainage management issues that threaten road safety and sanitation. These problems lead to clogged drains, flooding, impassable roads, and sanitation crises, especially in the Central Division and along major routes such as Avenue, Awindiri-Ewuata Road, Enyau Road, and other central business district roads.

In 2015, Arua was named the second best cleanest small city in Africa at the inaugural African Mayor’s Awards in Luanda, Angola, ranking just behind Praia, Cape Verde. However, recent years have seen deterioration in garbage and plastic waste management.

Ben Solomon Ajuma, a retired civil servant and resident, pointed to poor physical planning and road design as key causes, urging urgent intervention from city authorities.

“Politicians and technical people are totally doing two different things and they cannot come into a common understanding easily, during former mayor Charles Asiki’s time the city was the second best in Africa but how is it now, actually Arua city is one of the clumsy city’s in Uganda right now in terms of drainage and waste management” he said.

Sections of Enyau Road, constructed under the USMID project, have suffered theft of metal drainage covers, exposing trenches that pose hazards to pedestrians and motorists, with injuries already reported. During heavy rains, stretches along the Awindiri-Kampala Road become impassable due to clogged and incomplete drainage systems, trapping water, mud, and debris on the roads, increasing hydroplaning risks.

Patrick Agundubo, a resident and road user, called for urgent action by the authorities to address drainage failures, which also contribute to accidents and road hazards.

“Such issues can cause for us problems as road users such as diseases because the stagnant water can be the source of breeding ground for mosquitoes, this blocked drainage systems can as well cause accidents for us as road users, our leaders really need to address for us this situation” he said.

Indiscriminate dumping of waste and plastics further worsens the situation, blocking drains and causing stagnant, foul-smelling water that breeds mosquitoes, heightening the risk of waterborne illnesses like cholera.

His Worship Shaidy Baguma, the Mayor of Arua Central Division, acknowledged these issues and attributed delays in drainage maintenance to responsibilities shared between the Arua City Council and the Central Division Council, emphasizing the need for coordinated action.

“There has been some challenge between the city and central division in regard to responsibility sharing but at the end of the day it is the central division implementing some of this things, like when we are cleaning the drainage systems city council is supposed to provide us with garbage trucks and other materials and  where the garbage is supposed to be deposited, now we want to centralize this things so that one council does it either central division council or city council including all the infrastructures and that is what we are battling for at the moment” he said.

Arua City’s rapid growth has outpaced its storm water infrastructure, leaving many areas reliant on unpaved roads and inadequate open drainage channels. The city is working to improve the situation through initiatives such as the Climate Resilience-Arua Project, in partnership with international stakeholders. Despite these efforts, enforcement and waste management challenges persist, hindering long-term solutions.