Parliament Launches Entebbe Expressway Probe Over Contractor’s UGX 55Bn Fee Claim

The Physical Infrastructure Committee has revealed plans to conduct a thorough investigation into the collection and management of toll fees at Entebbe Expressway.

This is after learning that the contractor, Egis Road Operation has claimed UGX55Bn in operation fees and the Ministry Works and Transport has minimal control on the escrow account where the money is paid.

The announcement was made by Mwine Mpaka, Chairperson, Committee on Physical Infrastructure during the familiarisation meeting held on 20th July 2026 with the Ministry of Works and Transport, who wondered what is unique about managing and collecting fees that would require a private player, yet this work can be done by the Ministry.

“You have constructed a very good road, with very many good benefits, you have contracted someone to collect this money. He is the same person going to bank this money, you don’t know how much actually he has banked and how much he has collected. But even these are responsibilities that you are equipped to have done. This is also another deal. This is also an investigation. We shall invite you at a later stage, I don’t know how you manage these continuous probes,” Mwine remarked.

Fred Byamukama, Minister of Works and Transport also informed the Committee that some staff at the Ministry intentionally didn’t alert top management about the end of the contract of Egis Road Operation, forcing the Ministry to extend the contract for one year in May 2026, but he promised to right the wrongs made in the initial contract and ensure that Uganda develops its own software to manage the tolling system.

Byamukama revealed, “Also, the mistake by our people here, they realised this contract would end in May 2026, but they did nothing. They could have already corrected this mistake; we already saw the problem right from the financing agreement. They sat down, the contract ended, they have gone ahead to sign a new agreement.

However, to correct that, I have asked these people to get someone to be able to make for us that system which can help us to manage those tolls. We should have a cashless system there, no paying of cash, either use your visa, your mobile phone or your account.”

The Minister also said that in the coming six months, the Ministry will focus on building its capacity to take over the management of the tolling system at Entebbe Expressway and yet in all the risk audit, value for money audit, there have been several questions raised on where the money collected from the toll road go to.

“When the system is in place, we government, we can recruit our people to manage the money there, eventually that money comes to us. That is the process we are taking now in a period of six months to solve this problem. The first problem, I doubt whether even themselves were involved. It came in the financing terms that the Chinese will construct, then the banker told these people, you are appointing someone, where they were supposed to escape that, they kept quiet, five years ended, they went ahead to sign this new agreement,” said Byabakama.

The decision to probe the operations at Entebbe Expressway toll gates followed a presentation made by Isaac Menya, Network Planning Engineer at the Ministry of Works and Transport who provided details on the expenditure versus the disbursement, indicating that since April 2021, out of the UGX191Bn collected so far, UGX129.7Bn was transferred into the escrow account and so far, about UGX55Bn of the collections has been spent to maintain the expressway.

Menya explained that they hope to repay the US$350Million loan obtained from Exim Bank of China used to construct the road, within 18years given the 5% growth revenue projections noting, “Where the revenue trends indicate annual growth of approximately 5%, and we also projected that over a 30-year tolling period, we would have realised about UGX2.8Trillion over the expressway. We made a five-year projection cycle, where we see that within 30 years of tolling, which most concessions take, we shall have probably paid back the money we borrowed in about year 18.”

However, Sylvia Nayebare sought a clarification on what constituted the UGX55Bn expenditure on maintaining the tolling operations asking, “From what he has read, there is UGX55Bn and that goes to the original company (Egis Road Operation), We would like to know exactly what are these costs, UGX55Bn is not little money. What are these costs that the original company is doing to have the UGX55Bn?”

Government also revealed it projected a traffic volume of about 13,000 vehicles per day. However, currently, there are about 29,000 vehicles that use the Expressway per day as of April, 2026 with an average of about UGX3.9Bn collected per month.

Parliament was informed that part of the UGX55Bn went towards installation of lighting along the Expressway since some of the road safety facilities that were never installed by the contractor, China Construction and Communication Company at the time of the construction of the road and in the next phase of refurbishment, some of the asphalt shall be replaced, since it is due for replacement in probably about three years.