Kampala-Entebbe expressway has been gazetted as a toll road by Uganda National Roads Authority.
As such, road users now have to pay a certain amount of money to access the 36.94km stretch of the road connecting Kampala Northern Bypass at Busega to the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway at Mpala with effect from 01st January 2022.
“UNRA engaged M/S EGIS Road Operation SA through a competitive international bidding process to undertake the Operation and Maintenance services along the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway,” said UNRA news update. Accordingly, Egis was given the expressway to commence works. With the objective of enabling value added services to the users of the toll road.
Prior to 01 January 2022 when tolling will go fully live, acceptance tests will be run for which a 30-day trial run test will be launched on 24th November 2021 and by then, UNBS should have certified the system after all system components are installed.
The tolling is partly because the funds used to construct the road were acquired on loan and it was anticipated that the money to be used to pay off the loan would come from the toll fees the road users pay at the toll gates. It will also allow for revenue enough to be collected to enable construction of new roads and facilitate maintenance and operations without further taxing the general public. For a while road users have been accessing the expressway freely incurring no charges at all.
The toll fees to be paid vary with the vehicle type and class description and are inclusive of an 18% VAT (Value Added Tax).
In Class 1, motorcycles of 400cc will be paying UGX 3,000 and Class 2 light vehicles with 2 Axles will pay UGX 5,000. Class 3 light vehicles with 3 Axles or more and medium goods vehicles with 2 or 3 Axles will be paying UGX 10,000. In Class 4, large goods vehicles and large buses with 4 and 5 Axles will pay UGX 15,000 while large goods vehicles with 6 and more Axles will pay UGX 18,000.
“The Operator is expected to run an intense marketing campaign of the approved tolling system products within the months of November and December prior to commencement of Tolling Operations,” says UNRA.
The main objective of the Kampala-Entebbe expressway according to the Ministry of Works and Transport, is to provide an efficient mass transit route between two vital cities, Kampala and Entebbe in the Greater Kampala Metropolitan Area region and decongest Kampala.