Dr. Eng. Andrew Naimanye, the Executive Director of Uganda Road Fund has been elected Vice President of the African Road Maintenance Funds Association (ARMFA) for the period 2023 to 2025.
This was during the 20th Annual General Assembly on Wednesday April 5th 2023 in Maputo Mozambique. The General Assembly was opened by the President of Mozambique H.E Filipe Nyusi.
AMFFA with its headquarters in Nairobi Kenya, is the governing body of the Road Funds in 36 countries in Sub Saharan Africa (SSA) over seeing the financing of the maintenance and rehabilitation of about 3million kilometers of Roads in SSA.
Dr. Naimanye is a UK Chartered Engineer and Fellow of he Institution of Civil Engineers. He holds a PhD in Transport Economics, Masters’ Degree in Transport Planning, a Bachelor’s Degree in Civil Engineering, all obtained from the University of Leeds in the UK.
The election to the Road Funds governing body at the continental level highlights Uganda’s commitment to prioritisation of road maintenance financing and will benefit the country in knowledge sharing and adoption of best practices.
The URF boss was also elected as the President of Eastern African Roads Maintenance Funds Association on 20th February 2023 in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania. However, upon his new appointment, he handed over the East African role to Executive Director Kenya Road Fund Mr. Rashid Muhammad.
About Uganda Road Fund
Uganda road fund (URF) was set up by an Act of Parliament in 2008 and started operating in January 2010.
The fund is responsible for financing the routine and periodic maintenance of public roads in Uganda, which are nominally valued at sh30 trillion.
Section 6(c) of the URF Act 2008 requires the fund to ensure public roads are maintained all the time and are motorable. Within the East African Region, Uganda was the last country to launch a second-generation road fund. The Fund became operational in 2010.
The Fund has a duty to finance the implementation of the Annual Road Maintenance Programmes (ARMP) that are carried out by the Uganda National Roads Authority(UNRA), Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and the other designated agencies responsible for District, Urban and Community Access Roads.
By aspiring to ensure a stable, adequate and timely flow of funds to agencies, the URF provides the opportunity for the implementing agencies to plan for efficiency and effective delivery of maintenance on their respective categories of roads.
The anticipated gains due to such stable and predictable financing, together with effective monitoring of fund use, will bring improvements to the condition of roads; reduce road maintenance costs; encourage a vibrant local construction industry; reduce road maintenance backlog and eventually reduce total transport costs, with the consequent gains to the national economy.
