The Permanent Secretary and Secretary to Treasury, RamathanGgoobi, has said that within six months, Government will be able to see the construction of Kampala-Jinja expressway off the ground.
Several Members Parliament (MPs) complained about the several hours Ugandans are losing while using the current Jinja-Road.
“We are about to see the road off the ground, there was one major condition which the bidders had requested of the guarantee and we have been having the processes of preparing this, working with the African Development Bank and I am happy to tell you that we are almost at the tail end of it, once we get no objection, within six months, we shall be able to have closed this major infrastructure,” said Ggoobi.
Meanwhile, the Minister of State for Finance, Henry Musasizi, has informed the MPs that although it will take time for Uganda Airlines to make profits, there are other forms of benefits Uganda will accrue.
The Minister said that before Uganda Airlines joined the market, tickets from Entebbe to Nairobi cost US$800, but these have since dropped to US$280.
“We were told that we should look at this Airline as a public road, we shouldn’t look at it as an investment that is going to give us direct profit in the near future, that we should look at it as a loss and look at other benefits and I was convinced. I remember that time, a ticket to Nairobi on Kenya Airways was going to US$800 and when our airline was put on that route, the ticket declined to US$280,” said Musasizi.
