The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
On average, in 39 years, Museveni has built 161 km of tarmac roads per year, whereas, on the other hand, as earlier stated, in 68 years, colonialists built only 12 km of tarmac per year. This means Museveni has performed 13 times better than the British colonial administration, despite all the corruption and incompetence plaguing his government.
COMMENT | NNANDA KIZITO SSERUWAGI | I set out with this writing intending to criticise the misallocation of national priorities by the government and argue that we need to prioritise road construction as a strategy to spur development. However, there is a contradiction. Despite Uganda’s road network being in shambolic disrepair, it is among the countries spending the largest percentage of its GDP on transport infrastructure globally. Let me return to this contradiction later.
Before I make a devastating criticism of President Yoweri Museveni’s misadministration of Uganda’s transport infrastructure, I must confess that historical perspective may be kinder to him. Let’s wind around with how and why.
Firstly, tracing the history of road infrastructure development in Uganda back to colonial times, one finds that in 68 years of colonialism, from 1894 to 1962, the colonial administration built only 844 km of bituminous standard roads (tarmac/ paved all-weather roads). This means, on average, the British built only 12.41 kilometres per year. In contrast, within 24 years after Uganda attained independence, from 1962 to 1986, we built about 1,200 km – 1,500 km of tarmac roads. Despite suffering prolonged political instability, civil wars, and economic collapse, especially between 1972 and 1986, Uganda’s “incompetent” and “corrupt” leaders managed to accomplish 5.7 times more in road network construction than colonialism accomplished in 68 years!
Nevertheless, Uganda’s road infrastructure development between 1962 and 1986 was relatively minimal, with fewer roads built, poorly maintained, and barely expanded. According to the World Bank, by 1986, Uganda’s total road network was around 26,000–30,000 km, although without a significant increase in the kilometres of tarmacked roads since the 1970s.
According to the Ministry of Works and Transport, Uganda now has a total road network of approximately 159,366 km. Out of the total road network, the national roads stretch about 20,854 km (13%); district roads 38,603 km (24%); urban roads are 19,959 km (13%), while community access roads stretch about 79,947 km (50%). The total distance of paved all-weather roads is approximately 6,338 km, representing about 30% of the national road network (meaning 30% of 20,854 km).
I must confess that I set out to write this frustrated with the disrepair of Uganda’s road network and intended to make a scathing criticism of Museveni’s incompetence and apathy towards the country’s transport infrastructure. However, facts and figures have, for a moment, disarmed me. I now find that between 1986 and 2025, Uganda’s tarmac road network has increased by 384.62%!
On average, in 39 years, Museveni has built 161 km of tarmac roads per year, whereas, on the other hand, as earlier stated, in 68 years, colonialists built only 12 km of tarmac per year. This means Museveni has performed 13 times better than the British colonial administration, despite all the corruption and incompetence plaguing his government.
To return to the contradiction I highlighted at the beginning, it is interesting that Uganda is one of the highest spenders on road construction globally. Uganda’s challenge is that it spends much less on an absolute scale, since we spend just about $1 billion (1.7-2.1% of GDP). In comparison, the largest spender globally is China, allocating approximately 1.4–1.9% of its GDP specifically to road construction. This translates to about $262.36-$356.06 billion. Therefore, if it were not for Uganda’s limited budget size, which subsequently implies a lower fixed amount of expenditure, we would be performing much better.
Nevertheless, I am also cognisant of the fact that donor funding accounts for over 60% of major road construction projects, because Uganda heavily relies on external loans and grants for capital-intensive infrastructure.
Despite the realisation that Uganda is among the countries prioritising expenditure on its road infrastructure, I still feel a responsibility to implore the government to take more strategic decisions in the allocation of public expenditure to scale up transport infrastructure development. There is still a lot of wasteful expenditure on public administration and direct interventions on poverty eradication, yet it’s ahistorical as a method of stimulating development.
Uganda spends approximately $860 million (Shs. 3.3 trillion) on the parish development model (PDM). Whatever benefits are assumed to be derived from this, the structural weakness it suffers is that it is not scalable. Just like the prior programs that failed, including Bonnabagaggawale, NAADS, Youth Livelihood Fund, etc, this PDM model is also likely to fail. Unfortunately, along with it will be drained trillions of shillings, which would be better utilised on infrastructure development. Note that the government of Uganda in the last decade has committed over Shs. 9 trillion towards wealth creation initiatives.
As late developers, I think we should not shy away from spending even four times more than China on the ratio of GDP to roads. Bridging transport infrastructure gaps is urgent for our long-term development. In developed countries, the network of paved and maintained all-weather roads stands at over 90%. In countries like Germany, France, and the UK, it comes close to 100%. In Uganda, only 4.5% of the total road network is paved!
Instead of pursuing direct poverty reduction interventions, I think we should instead integrate local labour into road construction projects to achieve both infrastructure development and poverty reduction simultaneously.
Economically speaking, roads can catalyse growth by enabling market access and stimulating non-agricultural activities. Socially, roads enhance welfare by connecting isolated communities to health centres, schools, and employment opportunities. There is a big body of evidence to suggest that a 10% increase in road infrastructure can lead to a 5.16% decline in poverty headcount in Africa. This underscores that roads play a powerful indirect role in poverty reduction.
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The writer is a Ugandan | Snnanda98@gmail.com
