NJERU, BUIKWE — Residents of Njeru Municipality have called for an investigation into the management of road works, accusing municipal officials of failing to translate funds allocated for road maintenance into visible improvements.
The residents want Minister for Local Government Balaam Barugahare to intervene when he visits Buikwe District, saying repeated concerns about the implementation of road projects have not been adequately addressed.
At the centre of the complaints are Njeru Municipal Town Clerk William Kamara and Municipal Engineer Eng. Festo Mawanga, whom residents accuse of presiding over poor implementation of road projects despite the municipality receiving substantial funding for road maintenance.
Irene Namukasa, a resident, claimed that Njeru Municipality receives about Shs250 million every quarter for road works, amounting to approximately Shs1 billion annually.
She questioned why such expenditure had not resulted in noticeable improvements across the municipality.
“We are begging Minister Balaam Barugahare to investigate what is happening in Njeru Municipality. We are told that about Shs1 billion is allocated annually for roads, but residents are not seeing the work on the ground,” Namukasa said.
Namukasa further alleged that several roads included in previous financial-year work plans have continued to appear in subsequent budgets without being completed.
She also raised concerns over what she described as “ghost roads” and urged the minister to scrutinise the municipality’s road programme, including the projects reportedly listed as completed.
The concerns have also been raised at the district level.
Richard Lwanga, a resident of Naminya, said the District Roads Committee had repeatedly questioned the quality and implementation of road works in Njeru.
According to Lwanga, some committee meetings have been extended because municipal officials allegedly failed to provide satisfactory reports and supporting evidence for roads presented as completed.
The latest concerns emerged during a Roads Committee meeting held at Hotel Amani in Njeru, where municipal officials were expected to present an account of road works undertaken in the municipality.
The meeting was chaired by State Minister for Industry Diana Mutasingwa, together with other political and technical leaders.
The meeting reportedly became tense after Njeru Municipality Mayor Yasin Kyaze declined to approve a roads report presented by Eng. Mawanga and Town Clerk Kamara.
Kyaze is said to have raised several concerns about the contents of the report, prompting committee members to demand further explanations from the municipal technical team.
The disagreement reportedly contributed to Mutasingwa leaving the meeting early to attend another engagement in Lugazi Municipality.
Buikwe District Engineer Eng. Seguya subsequently accepted the mayor’s request for another meeting to give the municipality an opportunity to revise and resubmit its report.
However, Seguya reportedly directed Njeru Municipality to facilitate the next committee meeting.
The Roads Committee was later expected to return to Njeru for an inspection of selected roads. The planned inspection was, however, cancelled.
A source familiar with the proceedings alleged that the inspection was called off amid concerns that limited substantive work had been completed on some of the roads.
The source claimed that in some locations, contractors or municipal teams had only dumped murram, without adequately spreading, levelling and compacting it.
The District Engineer reportedly gave the municipal engineering team two weeks to improve the situation, expressing frustration over repeated committee visits without satisfactory progress.
“The committee is tired of coming to Njeru every week over the same issues. You have to do whatever is required within the available time,” Seguya reportedly told the municipal officials.
The committee also compared the situation in Njeru with road works in neighbouring Lugazi Municipality, where works are supervised by Municipal Engineer Eng. Daniel Kamya.
Members reportedly expressed satisfaction with the standards of road works in Lugazi and encouraged the Njeru engineering team to adopt a similar approach.
For residents, however, the dispute is no longer simply about the condition of individual roads. They want greater accountability over how road funds are planned, spent and accounted for.
The repeated appearance of roads in work plans, allegations of incomplete works and disagreements over municipal reports have raised questions about whether projects are being properly monitored from budgeting to execution.
Namukasa said residents should be able to trace public funds through completed and functional infrastructure.
The residents are now looking to Minister Barugahare’s expected visit to Buikwe to provide an opportunity for an independent assessment of Njeru’s road programme and establish whether funds allocated for road maintenance are producing the intended results.
The municipal officials accused in the complaints have not yet publicly responded to the allegations. Their response, together with documentary evidence on the road budgets, contracts, payments and completed works, will be critical in establishing the extent of the concerns raised by residents and the Roads Committee.
