Poor roads like this in Gulu, Uganda, affecting business in East Africa
The Civil Society Budget Advocacy Group has appealed to the government to allocate additional resources to the upgrading and improvement of district, urban and community access roads since it is those roads that serve the majority of the people in Uganda.
In a report on the National Budget Frame Work Paper, the group says though there is a great need to improve that national road connectivity and raise it to admirable standards, the improvement of national roads should not be at the expense of the district, urban and community access roads.
The status of roads in Uganda report reveals that 30% of the roads are in good condition, 50% in fair condition and 20% in poor condition but the district and urban roads are generally poor while the community roads are dilapidated.
The group says the district, urban and community access roads are vital to the economic welfare of the poor in Uganda as it is the poor that benefit from such roads. They say that the National Service Delivery Survey 2008 has attested to this as it reveals that community roads are the nearest type of roads to the majority of households as community roads are the nearest roads to 64% of the households.
Despite that government funding to the infrastructural sector has increased from 11.3% to about 17.5% between the financial year 2006/7 and the financial year 2008/9, this however that has not trickled down to real improvements in feeder roads.