How road mafias are eating billions

On one road project, officials allegedly planted fake graves in the path of a proposed highway so they could claim compensation.

On another, buildings appeared along the route shortly before government valuers arrived. Elsewhere, wetlands acquired land titles within months and were presented for compensation.

And on some projects, according to Works and Transport minister Fred Byamukama, government officials who were supposed to protect taxpayers’ money instead positioned themselves to benefit from it.

Byamukama says corruption inside Uganda’s road sector has become so entrenched that the government could be losing as much as Shs 50 billion every three months.

“We have arrested and sacked some people at the Ministry of Works, and we expect a good number of people to go to Luzira prison because of corruption,” Byamukama said.

“They move with huge amounts of money to bribe everybody, but they are going to be arrested.” Then he made the allegation personal. “They have tried to bribe me, but they have failed,” he said.

The minister’s accusations offer a disturbing explanation for a contradiction familiar to millions of Ugandans: government spends enormous amounts of money on roads, yet projects routinely become more expensive, take longer than planned or remain unfinished.

Byamukama alleges that part of the money is lost long before a motorist ever drives on the finished road, through inflated contracts, questionable compensation claims, manipulation of road designs, and collusion between public officials and contractors.

The consequences extend beyond bad roads. Every extra billion shillings spent on an inflated project is money the government must find elsewhere, at a time when Uganda is already struggling with rising debt-servicing costs.

In the 2026/27 national budget, the government allocated about Shs 12 trillion for interest payments to creditors. Over the last five financial years, interest payments have risen sharply, from Shs 4.69 trillion in 2022/23 to more than Shs 12 trillion.

Against that backdrop, corruption in road construction becomes more than a story about dishonest officials. It is about what Uganda gets, or fails to get, for increasingly scarce public money.

THE SHS 150BN DISPUTE

In July, President Yoweri Museveni ordered the removal of six officials associated with the Works ministry and aviation sector amid corruption allegations.

They included Eng Steven Kitonsa, the Engineer-in-Chief at the Ministry of Works and Transport; Eng Ronald Olaki, project manager for the Masaka–Kyotera–Mutukula highway; and Eng Rogers Kisambira, who oversaw road infrastructure projects linked to the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations.

Others were Eng Ronald Twesigye, coordinator of the Entebbe International Airport expansion and chairperson of the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority Contracts Committee; Eng Sooma Ayoub, UCAA director of airports; and Helen Wenene Mary, UCAA head of legal. Byamukama singled out Olaki in his allegations.

“Eng. Olaki and others were in a deal to steal Shs 150 billion,” he said. “Conniving with contractors, he had mastered the art of stealing government funds.”

These are allegations by the minister, and the draft material provided to The Observer does not contain responses from Olaki or the other officials accused.

The minister alleged that officials and contractors had developed sophisticated ways to extract money from road projects, including positioning properties along planned routes so that the government would later have to compensate their owners.

On the Kyaliwajjala, Kira, Matugga Road, he alleged that a Shell petrol station and other buildings that attracted substantial compensation belonged to employees of the Works ministry. He also alleged that titles had been created in wetlands and subsequently presented for compensation.

“They create them in three months and get compensated,” Byamukama said.

If substantiated, the allegations reveal how corruption can make road construction expensive without necessarily improving roads: public money intended to build infrastructure is diverted into compensation claims or added project costs before construction is completed.

WHEN SHS 600BN BECOMES SHS 2 TRILLION

Byamukama pointed to the Busega Expressway as another example. Funding from the African Development Bank was intended for physical construction, while Uganda was responsible for compensating people whose property had to be acquired for the right-of-way.

According to the minister, that division created an opportunity for abuse.

“People went on to eat this money from the government of Uganda through land acquisition,” he said.

He alleged that although 80 per cent of the proposed right of way passed through swamp, the road design was altered towards dry land, creating properties eligible for compensation.

The financial consequence, according to Byamukama, was extraordinary. He said a road project originally expected to cost Shs 600 billion eventually rose to Shs 2 trillion because of corruption. That is more than three times the original figure.

Byamukama says the networks behind such schemes are powerful enough to attempt to compromise even the people sent to investigate them.

“I have heard mafias planning to put me down,” he said. “You have been plotting for a month to put me down, but I will put you out of action in one day.”

He added: “I am not scareable, threatenable. I am not going anywhere. I am here until the mess we have in the road projects in Uganda is rectified.”

He also warned contractors that blacklisting was coming. “You are not worthy to work in government, go and start a business, go to Kikuubo and start selling rice,” he said. “That vice of stealing government of Uganda money through contractors is going to stop.”

AFCON ROADS AND THE PRICE OF A KILOMETRE

The same battle has reached road projects associated with the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, which Uganda will co-host. According to Byamukama, the original cost was Shs 5.5 billion per kilometre, but there was an attempt to increase it to Shs 8.5 billion per kilometre.

The additional demand amounted to Shs 238 billion. “I was in the meeting, and they told him their roads can’t be done until government adds Shs 238 billion,” Byamukama said, referring to a meeting with Museveni.

According to the minister, the proposal was rejected. But his account raises a more fundamental problem in Uganda’s road sector: why can’t the government establish a sufficiently reliable benchmark for what a kilometre of road should cost?

Byamukama said Uganda has still failed to quantify the cost of constructing a kilometre of tarmac or murram road across different regions.

“You find each day, the cost for a kilometre of a road changes because the quantified figure would tie them down,” he said.

Without reliable benchmarks, variations in terrain, materials and design may legitimately produce different costs. But without clear reference prices, it can also be harder for taxpayers and oversight institutions to distinguish legitimate differences from inflated contracts.

MASAKA–MUTUKULA: 23 PER CENT DONE

The 86km Masaka–Mutukula Road provides another example of the problems Byamukama says the government is confronting. The project is expected to cost Shs 629 billion.

Yet with one year remaining in its three-year implementation period, the contractor had completed only 23 per cent of the work, according to the minister. Byamukama said the contractor had promised to pre-finance the project but had delivered less work than expected after two years.

He alleged that documents subsequently emerged proposing an additional Shs 150 billion, including money for another layer of tarmac.

“We gave them a design, scrutinized it and signed the contract, and later the contractor mooted a plan to steal government funds by adding a layer of tarmac, which would cost Shs 150 billion,” Byamukama said.

He linked the removal of Kitonsa and Olaki to problems surrounding the project. “Eng. Olaki and Kitonsa were chased because of the Masaka–Mutukula Road,” he said.

Again, these remain allegations from the minister.

THE ROAD WITH FAKE GRAVES

Perhaps the most startling allegations concern the 72km Nateete–Nakawuka– Kawuku Road. According to Byamukama, people seeking compensation created fake graves along the proposed right-of-way.

When the supposed burial sites were examined, he said, there were no bodies beneath them.

“They are in line, and all of them are similar,” the minister said, describing the supposed graves. The logic was simple: if a road displaced a grave, its owner could demand money to relocate the remains. Byamukama alleged that buildings along a 10km section of the proposed route also belonged to Works ministry officials who were involved in determining compensation.

“They determine how much they should be compensated because they are the owners of the buildings, and the valuers and surveyors,” he said.

“We shall not compensate them; instead, we are going to arrest them because there is an investigation report.”

The government had allocated Shs 430 billion for compensation along the project, according to the minister. At Menda village, where the road is supposed to connect to the Mpigi Expressway, investigators encountered another unusual pattern.

Buildings had been constructed and externally furnished with doors and windows but had no roofs and remained unoccupied. Structures resembling pit latrines allegedly contained neither pits nor septic tanks.

Byamukama said they were erected because their owners knew where the road would pass and expected compensation. An acre of land in the area was being valued at as much as Shs 2 billion, he said. The minister subsequently ordered the arrest of Isaac Akampa, a valuer, and Elijja Sekkitto, a surveyor at the Ministry of Works and Transport.

THE HIDDEN COST REACHES TAXPAYERS

Uganda has a road network of roughly 159,000 kilometres, stretching from national highways to district, urban and community access roads. Maintaining and expanding that network requires enormous amounts of public money.

But corruption is not the only source of waste. In 2024, Deputy Speaker Thomas Tayebwa said government was losing Shs 285 million a day through interest and penalties arising from delayed payments to contractors.

He said the now-defunct Uganda National Roads Authority paid Shs 26 billion in penalties for late contractor payments in 2023 alone.

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