By Richard Kyanjo & Al Mahdi Ssenkabirwa
The Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) Executive Director Allen Kagina and a team of experts from the Uganda Institute of Engineers have this morning visited Lwera, a section of the Kampala- Masaka highway where a culvert caved in on Saturday.
On Saturday evening, one of the corrugated metal culverts caved in and a big sunken hole emerged on one of the lanes, paralyzing traffic on the usually busy highway. By last evening, engineers from UNRA had restored the damaged section.
According to Eng. Moses Nyakana, the UNRA station manager in Masaka sub-region, the authority is now considering use of durable box culverts to address the persistent crumbling of road at Lwera.
He tells KFM that UNRA has over the years been using corrugated metal culverts in Lwera swamp which get weakened during heavy rains but they have now come up with designs of the required box culverts and only await finding for the same.
Unlike corrugated metal culverts, Eng. Nyakana said concrete culverts are expensive and it will cost UNRA some billions of shillings to put concrete culverts in Lwera swamp. Lwera section which stretches about 18kms is prone to accidents and sometimes the metallic culverts curve in unexpectedly, he said in an interview on Monday morning.
