A drive through Senior Quarters in Mbale town needs one to understand that it’s an upscale area between a number of hotels, organizations, the State Lodge and the apartments which make it up.
With all these facilities in place, what is in question is the Bungokho road and Bishop Masaba or call it the Ring road that is in bad shape and plays a big role in servicing the facilities hence slowing down the economy of the place as narrated by Ali Abed the area chairman.
“We have raised a number of issues concerning our road. Well, the authority has not taken up, we don’t know whether it is still regarded as part of the Mbale town which has lost its glory? But as for now, we are finding it a little bit challenging that the level of investment that the investors are putting up it is not actually matching with the road in place.
The infrastructure is poorly organized, actually, it’s not there, it now coming into a bush. It would be very good if the authority came out to begin afresh and see what is required because we are moving ahead, we want Mbale to be a city but not in this kind of arrangement as it is now.” Said, Ali Abed – Area Chairman.
To the residents, the road is dusty and affects them health wise and to the business owners, their revenue is depreciating.
"The road is almost impassable, there are potholes and during the rainy season, it's almost impassable. So basically it has affected business especially for people who have small cars.
The residents of Mbale who are supposed to enjoy these facilities can't do that because they fear for their vehicles in terms of depreciation and so forth because of the bad road.
So in that way, it is affecting business for the hotel facilities along the road and our revenue is basically going down because of that. And during the hot season, there is the issue of dust. Maintenance costs go up because the dust gets into the facility."
It’s on that note that the stakeholders called for a meeting to be one voice and engage the Municipal Council about the rehabilitation of the road or even get answers as to why the ring road was not involved in the first phase of the roads programme of Mbale Municipality.
With the selections of the roads being done by the Municipal Council, the Offspring Coordinator Isaac Mutebi hoped maybe in the next Offspring programme the road will be included by Municipal Council due to its connectivity.
“The current project which is ending, unfortunately, I don’t know why it wasn’t there. They selected four roads which are all being done and about to be complete.
And I think this road will be included in the next project because we have a second phase of the project which is likely to start soon.So I think this project will be put in because as I said earlier on, it provides a very good connectivity.”
The meeting that lasted for nearly 6 hours finally came to an end with the stakeholders forming a committee of 10 people which will on a regular basis continue to engage the Municipal Council.
However, the stakeholders said they din't wish to discard UNRA out of this as any help extended to this road will be a fountain of honor.
