Joshua Nahamya
Mbarara.
Mbarara city leadership headed by the city clerk Assy Abirebe has commissioned a grader worth 1.019 (1,019,000,000) Billion to work on the city roads.
According to city mayor Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi, the new model caterpillar 140 GC 2021 bought from the United States of America was bought using the local revenue collection worth 5.6 bln collected during the 2021/23 financial year.
Kakyebezi said Mbarara could be one of the first regional cities to collect such a huge budget of local revenue where the city can pull money to cater for the road services in Mbarara.
“The grader follows another double cabin that we bought last week to be used in the revenue collection. And now we are going to make sure that we work on roads such that people get services from their money” says Kakyebezi
He adds that Mbarara city could as well be the first of its kind to think of buying road equipment to supplement the central government service delivery.
“We might be the first to buy road equipment and if the central government is going to give to the cities it means for us will be having two graders” the City Mayor explained
Kakyebezi thanked the people of Mbarara for paying the taxes well but also warned the drivers to take good care of such equipment.
“I want to thank the taxpayers of Mbarara city, and let us not disappoint the people of Mbarara, use this grader to work on their roads so that they can realize why they are paying taxes,” the Mayor said
“Look after this grader like the way you look after yourself, I don’t want to hear excuses of fuel or breakdowns” he added
Lt Col. James Mwesigye, Resident City commissioner (RCC) Mbarara also thanked the leadership of Mbarara for complimenting central government works.
“I want to thank the mayor, his team and the technical people for buying this grader. It’s not to any city or even a district that has thought about this, they have just been depending on the offers of the central government but now I can confirm that Mbarara is the first city to buy their own grader” Mwesigye said
The RCC however warned leaders of Mbarara city to desist from doing shoddy works and he also cautioned the driver to guard this heavy road equipment mercilessly.
“The other time you were saying that much money would be spent on hiring graders but now that you have your own new road equipment let us expect quality road works that benefits the population of Mbarara. And for the users, you should keep this machine jealousy use it very well and let it do the work” says Mwesigye
Assy Abirebe, the city clerk added that the remaining local revenue was used to work on other services such as the supply of 3-seater twin desks in selected primary schools and the supply of pick-up double cabin vehicles among others.
“As Mbarara city we don’t use local revenue for purposes of allowances as people may think but we give back to the people who pay us taxes. For example we constructed a two classroom block at Biharwe Moslem P/S, maintenance of the road network in Mbarara city especially those that are under the divisions because for them they don’t receive road fund” Abirebe explained
Merynah Kekiijo, the city engineer says that “the company will freely train the operator on how to use the new model grader and they are also giving us a warrant of two years carrying out routine service”.
