The rehabilitation of roads in Busia Municipality for the financial year 2023/24 has been temporarily postponed. This delay is the result of a dispute that arose between the leaders of divisions and the municipal leadership regarding the costs associated with the project.
On Wednesday, October 11, leaders convened at Mugungu B Village in Eastern Division. The event was organized to launch the road rehabilitation works, and preparations were made with the setup of two tents and a public address system. However, once the speeches began, leaders used the platform to express their concerns.
Michael Kibwika, the Busia Resident District Commissioner (RDC), made the decision to suspend the 10km road rehabilitation works. This action was taken after leaders from Western and Eastern divisions clashed with Busia Municipal Council leaders. They raised questions about the alleged inflated costs of the 17 roads designated for rehabilitation.
One of the roads that drew significant scrutiny was a 0.7-kilometer border road with a budget of sh150.78 million.
Lower council chairpersons, Muhammad Kibaki and Aisha Kalombo, representing Western and Eastern divisions, respectively, requested information on the guidelines used by the municipality to determine the rehabilitation costs. However, Farouk Kiganda, the municipality engineer, argued that the shillings one billion grant from the Central Government did not come with any specific guidelines.
Division leaders pointed out that some of the roads slated for rehabilitation, such as Sangalo (0.2km), Amisi Mafabi (1.2km), and Abisai Bwire (0.6km), were allocated budgets of sh55.5 million, sh65.8 million, and sh70.7 million, respectively. These roads had been recently repaired in September 2023.
Kalombo emphasized that all the roads selected for rehabilitation were chosen without involving the divisions, and some of them were not in as poor condition as others that were left out. She proposed that since the municipality did not have its roads, the municipal council should allocate funds to the divisions to cover more kilometers than initially planned.
The scheduled roadworks were to include site preparation, setting out, site clearance, earth and drainage works, gravelling, and completion. Notably, the town clerk, Ronald Baganza, was present at the launch but remained silent.
Only three out of twenty-four village chairpersons attended the event, with others boycotting. George Barasa, the chairperson of the Busia Municipality LC1 and 2 Chairpersons Association, stated that village chairpersons had reservations about working with Baganza, accusing him of disregarding their concerns.
Kiganda attributed the current situation to politicians but promised to acquire guidelines from the Ministry of Works, despite previously claiming they were unavailable.
Kibwika concluded that the roadworks would proceed once the guidelines were presented. He emphasized the need to ascertain the cost per kilometer for the municipality roads before the launch.
