Announcement of Five Million Dollar IDA Credit for Roads in Uganda on July 21, 1967

• INTERNATIONAL DEVELOPMENT ASSOCIATION l 8 l 8 H ST R E ET. f'-J •W. , WASH I N GT O N D. C. 2 0 4 3 3 TELEPHONE: EXECUTIVE 3-6360 IDA Press Release No. 67/11 Subject: $5 million IDA credit for July 21, 1967 roads in Uganda The Internation.al Development Association (IDA), an affiliate of the World Bank, has approved a credit of the equivalent of $5 million to the State of Uganda. The purpose of the credit is to help finance the detailed engineering and construc- tion of approximately 100 miles of main and feeder roads, and the detailed engineer- ing of a further 460 miles of roads in the same categories. All of these roads form an i·ntegral part of the road program contained in the Government's Five Year Development Plan and were found by a recent Bank economic mission to Uganda to be • of high priority • Apart from large swamps in the southern part of the country, the land area of Uganda presents few physical problems to communications. The two largest cities (Kampala and Jinja) and a number of small centers are served by road, rail and air transport. For a long time, Uganda has had one of the better road networks in tropical Africa. Three factors are mainly responsible for this: first, a wide- spread availability of laterite soils which provide an excellent road-building material; secondlf, the general absence of rivers and streams requiring extensive bridging; thirdly, a tradition of road-building based on customary law which gave the African taxpayei·s the option to choose between the payments of local taxes in cash or community work. Current apd expected traffic volumes on many roads are such that the roads are unable to stand up to the heavy wear imposed. The growing traffic volumes on these • often poorly aligned roads cause increasing amounts of dust that restrict road capacity, increase vehicle operating costs and add to driving hazards. In addition,  - 2 - the frequent renewal of gravel and/or grading of the roads becomes increasingly ~ costly and delays traffic. Bituminou• surfacing baa therefore become necessary in some instance&. The project consists of five items. The firat of these is the reconstruc- tion to a paved surface of the main road from Mbarara to Katunguru, a distance of 69 miles in southwest Uganda. This road forms a part of the main trunk road between western Uganda and Kenya. It is also one of the main access routes into the Congo as well as to important parks and game reaerves on both sides of the border, in particular the Queen Elizabeth National Park, a major tourist attrac- tion. As the second item, three short feeder roads located near the ICatunguru end of the trunk road are to be reconstructed. The improved access that ·they will provide to the fish processing plants on the shores of Lake George and • Lake Edward will eliminate losses of fish caused by delays and the occaaional impassability of the present tracks. The third item in the project consists of the construction of two roads, with a total length of 24 miles, running thrc,ugh hilly and mountainous terrain on either side of the main Fort Portal-Kampala road. These roada will aerve the important and rapidly developing tea gro~·ing area in the vicinity of Fort Portal, facilitating the collection of the growers' leaf and its transporta- tion to the factories. Detailed engineering and supervision of 1che construction of the above main, feeder and tea roads are the fourth item included in the project. Finally, the project includes the detailed engineering of .additional main, feeder and tea roads of a total length of 460 miles, though their construction, which doea not form part of the project, will be undertaken at a later stage. The cost of the project, including engin.eering and contingencies, is esti- mated at the equivalent of $7.2 million. The IDA credit will cover the foreign exchange component of the total cost, estimated at $5 million. Execution of the project will be the responsibility of the Ministry of Works, Communication• and Housing. The detailed engineering (some of which has already been completed) and the supervision of construction will be carried out by consultanta. The IDA credit will be for a term of 50 years. Repayment of the principal • will begin on October 1, 1977 after a 10-year period of grace. Thereafter, 11 of the principal will be repayable annually for 10 years and 3t will be repay- able annually for the remaining 30 years. The credit will be free o.f interest, but a service charge of three-quarters of 11 per annum on the t\Dlount withdrawn and outstanding will be made to meet IDA's administrative costa. • •• \) 0 A t\! / / ./ ,"\... . ~ / s . '\ /'""'. / '-· ,-·-·-·./· '·-·-./· (\ / •/\ .J ' ( {. """ "\ ~ ·, ) (, ~ \.. ' ~ \ \ ~ ,.:) . /<, \ '\ ~ o(r. c,o ~ 0~ (, • ' .Mtu:s ' R l ltiUl· !')"f,i(l