UNRA has announced that it will summon the contractor for the slow progress of the Muyembe-Nakapiripirit road construction. This was said during the meeting between the project management team and the stakeholders in Nakapiripirit on August 17, 2021 to address the concerns of the project.
On November 7,2019, UNRA awarded a Shs399 bn contract to a Turkish company called Polat Yol Yapi Sanayi Ve Ticaret A.S Hasanpasa Mah Uzuncayir Yolu to upgrade a 92km road from Muyembe to Nakapiripirit located in the North-Eastern part of Uganda and traverses the districts of Bulambuli, Kween and Nakapiripirit.
According to UNRA, the contractor agreed that 30th March 2020 is the date of commencement for the project which should have been completed within a period of 36 months. However, since then the project is not even half way near completion.
” With a cumulative physical progress of works at 3% as of July 2021, the contractor’s performance has been assessed and registered as poor by the supervision team, having not completed all the mobilization activities within the scheduled period ,” the report revealed.
UNRA’s project management team was forced to hurriedly hold a meeting with the contractor on March 16, 2021 who attributed the slow progress on restrictions caused by the lockdown imposed due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
In the report presented, the contractor was instructed to prepare a Recovery Action Plan which was shared on April 15,2021 to UNRA and the Islamic Development Bank (lsDB) which is funding the project.
Since then a number of key stakeholders have raised concerns about the slow progress and the contractor is being summoned through a second notice.
During today’s meeting UNRA has resolved to ensure that the contractor adheres to the agreed upon Recovery Action Plan that would seek to recover the lost time on the project .
According to the report, should the contractor to default on their commitments, they risk having their contract terminated.
The UNRA project Management team was led by the Director Roads and Bridges Development, Eng. Samuel Muhoozi and the stakeholders in the meeting included Hon. Peter Lokeris, State Minister for Energy and Minerals Development plus a team of Diplomats from the Turkish Embassy in Uganda. Also in attendance were Local Government leaders and MPs from Kween, Bulambuli and Nakapiripirit districts, representing the communities along the project.
The upgrading of the Muyembe-Nakapiripirit road to a paved bituminous standard will improve it’s motorability and facilitate growth within the region. This project will also include improvement of 25km of secondary Links roads in the region.
