Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) Boss Allen Kagina announced earlier this week that the French company Egis Road Operation has been awarded the contract to collect Kampala Entebbe Express road toll fees and carry out maintenance works on the Highway.
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Egis Road Operation is a French Company which specializes in the operation and maintenance of roads and infrastructure; roads and urban and inter-urban motorways, tunnels, bridges with conventional or open-road toll systems in developing countries.
Egis Road Operation to sensitize public about Kampala Entebbe Express road toll fees
UNRA Boss, Allen Kagina said at the press conference this week, “I am happy to report that the contract with the Kampala-Entebbe Express Highway operation and maintenance provider received the clearance of the Solicitor General on Thursday 11th February 2021,” according to Chimp Reports.
The contract shall be signed to allow the provider to start mobilization, sensitization of the public and implementation, all by the end of this Financial year she added.
Toll collection usually happens when a government needs to recover some or all the costs of construction, operation and maintenance of roads, bridges, and tunnels. Citizens will then be required to pay a certain charge for using the road, bridge or tunnel.
Part of this revenue collection process can be automated to improve operating efficiencies and reduce the operating cost of toll collection by means of Electronic Toll Collection (ETC). Prior to the introduction of ETC tolls were collected manually – involving the construction of large “toll plazas” on motorways with multiple toll booths.
It is too early to confirm when Ugandans will be seeing such developments as they use this highway as the contract with the French Company has just been signed. But it should be expected in the future that road users will be required to pay Kampala Entebbe Express road toll fees to use the highway or can opt for the Entebbe road to dodge the fee. This road is however much narrower and congested with traffic which is inconveniencing.
The Kampala-Entebbe Express Highway is a four-lane toll highway which links Entebbe to the capital city Kampala. It was opened for traffic on June 15th 2018. It is the first toll road in Uganda and users will be expected to pay a toll charge in the future.
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