Uganda’s main trade artery is the Northern Corridor which starts from Mombasa, Kenya through the border towns of Malaba and Busia to Kampala via Jinja. The road thereafter connects to South Sudan via Gulu, Rwanda via Katuna and through the Gisenyi border to Congo DRC and also to Congo DRC via Kasese, Bundibugyo. The state of the Northern Corridor is at the moment in a fairly good standing except for the Jinja to Kampala and Bwaise to Matugga sections. However, for about two years now, the traffic jam in Kampala and on the Jinja-Kampala highway section has turned out to be a huge cost on business and travel due to the unprecedented and unending delays.
To travel between Jinja and Kampala which is 81.4 kilometers (kms), used to take less than one hour. It is now so messy that one needs at least 3 to 4 hours. This is a huge cost on both labour productivity and resource allocation. For example, because of the traffic congestion it is impossible to do two deliveries a day using the same truck on the same road. To the extent that where a company would have needed say one truck to make two deliveries every day, they now need to have two trucks. If a company was to make 10 deliveries every day, they would now need 10 trucks instead of 5 trucks. However, since the core business of the company may not be investing in trucks; it has no choice but to do so which comes across as a resource misallocation.
For labour back then, it was normal to live in Jinja and work in Kampala or live in Kampala and work in Jinja; quite often for family reasons. Today such a thought is inconceivable as even living in places as close as Mukono which is 23 kms, navigating through Seeta, Bweyogerere, Kireka, Banda and Nakawa to the city center is problematic for working families. To be able to make it to work before 8.00 am, one has be on the road as early as 5:30 am! This undermines family time as working mums and dads have only time to have dinner and sleep. Since evening traffic after 5 pm, implies that working mums and dads can only get home after 8 pm and be in bed before 10pm so as to be able to wake up at 4am to get ready for the day’s work and traffic challenges.
The inability to easily exit and enter Kampala has unfortunately given value to land in Kampala and its suburbs which further undermines home ownership and development among Ugandans who earn a regular income without access to illicit income. In doing so, this group of alienated Ugandans are either congested in slums or seek refuge to far off destinations such as Kalagi and Mpoma in Mukono where land is relatively affordable albeit with limited public infrastructure development to even justify the value of the land. We are basically in a state where traffic congestion which is attributed to inadequate physical planning and inconsistent prioritisation of public infrastructure development defining the value of land and as such where normal Ugandans own homes and live as opposed to availability of public amenities and shopping facilities. This begs the question what are our transport and economic planners doing?
It is also not surprising that Jinja which used to be referred to as Uganda’s industrial town has since lost the mantle to Kampala. Indeed, under the circumstances, industries have to be located in Kampala which unfortunately was not planned for factories. Jinja was predominantly physically designed for industries. For example through the Jinja pier to access Kenya via Kisumu and Tanzania via Mwanza and the well planned railway and road links plus the easier accessibility to electricity for factories, among others. The agglomeration effect resulted in other services coming on board such as banks, insurance, hotels, container depot, etc. However, traffic congestion between Jinja and Kampala has since undermined Jinja’s economic prospects that every new factory seems interested to be located in the midst of Greater Kampala region due to the market pool and some even preferring Mukono.
Given the level of traffic congestion, on the Jinja-Kampala highway, now more than ever the Jinja-Kampala Expressway (JKE) is needed and should be prioritized. This is because of the cost to the economy in the current state of traffic congestion and how it is undermining production. For example, the African Development Bank notes that the JKE has the potential of savings in transit times and vehicle operating costs, valued at US $1,132 million and US $3,254 million respectively over the concession period compared to the baseline scenario. Time saving could be at least 70 minutes of travel time between Kampala and Jinja. If one does a return journey between Kampala and Jinja from Monday to Friday that would amount to saving one day’s work! That saving is for an individual, however at the aggregate that is a lot of money lost sitting in a car or transiting goods. I am not even yet considering the fuel wasted during the time you spend in traffic doing nothing. Of course not to mention: the emotional stress that working mums and dads take to work and their families; and pollution.
Recently, the Minister of Works and Transport disclosed Government plans to partner with a reknown investor to bring in over 900 commuter buses in a bid to ease traffic flow in Kampala. While this is highly appreciated, we hope arrangements will be made to enforce traffic laws, rules and regulations. The level of indiscipline being exhibited on our roads has greatly partly contributed to the traffic jams and unending delays on our roads.
Finally, while the JKE could be helpful in ameliorating traffic congestion between Jinja and Kampala, its relevance will be hinged on the nature of designs otherwise the mistakes that were made on the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway could be replicated. For example, the design should be aware of the fact that a lot of the traffic on the existing Jinja-Kampala highway starts from Mukono to Nakawa implying that to avoid the JKE being underutilized, it must allow road users to join and exit between Mukono and the city otherwise it will operate at excess capacity.
Lastly, the construction of the Standard Gauge Railway (SGR) should be urgently prioritized, as we cannot continue transporting our heavy and bulky commodities which are of low value, minerals, equipment, machinery, and petroleum products on our low capacity roads. The repair and maintenance costs are prohibitive. Indeed, at this rate even the JKE will serve for only a short period of time if heavy trucks keep ferrying goods on our roads. More importantly, it is the combination and optimization of efficient transport modes that will render Ugandan goods and services competitive from a business point of view.
Foresight 