By Stanley Ebele
Residents in Kotido Municipality have kept their hopes alive on the tarmacking of roads despite the announcement of huge budgetary cuts to the road infrastructure development.
Over the years, President Yoweri Museveni has promised to tarmac several roads connecting to Karamoja but a few have seen the light.
Those that have been worked on are the Soroti-Katakwi-Moroto road, with incomplete extension works to Lokitanyale in Kenya, and the ongoing works for the Mbale- Muyende-Nakapiripirit road.
However, the Lira-Otuke-Abim-Kotido road; the Moroto-Kotido road; the Arapai-Amuria-Abim-Kotido road, and the Kotido-Kaabong-Karenga roads remain on paper amidst the deteriorating shape of the roads especially during the rainy seasons.
Currently, vehicles plying the northern Karamoja routes spend more hours on the road following the onset of rains since late April.
The Kotido-Soroti route which used to take about five hours by Gateway Bus now takes up to eight hours.
Emmanuel Opio, the Kapelebyong Communications Officer who travelled from Kotido to Soroti on Friday after an official workshop says the bus reached Soroti at 11:00pm after leaving Kotido at 3:00pm.
On Wednesday last week, the HMK Bus plying Kotido-Abim-Otuke-Lira route arrived in Kotido at 10:30pm, more than two hours past the usual arrival time.
Whereas there were hopes that the government would provide resources for the tarmacking of some of the roads in Karamoja in the next financial year, the report from the Ministry of Works and Transport to the Parliament last week indicated that only Shs682 billion has been allocated for the road works in the FY 2025/26.
This leaves the ministry with the funding gap of Shs2.472 trillion from the Shs3.15 trillion planned for road infrastructure development.
However, some of the residents in Kotido town say that they are not worried about the budget cuts since Karamoja is a special case to the President.
Their views are reechoed by the Jie County MP, Peter Abraham Lokii.
While addressing a rally in November 2015 at Lomukura Primary School in Kotido Town Council, President Museveni Pledged to tarmac Moroto-Kotido-Kaabong Road.
The president has made similar pledges during his campaign rallies in Karamoja.
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