Along a 145-kilometre corridor linking Busunju to Kiboga to Hoima, a road rehabilitation project sits frozen at less than half its journey while the clock moves steadily toward Uganda's hosting of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations. Shadow Minister Asinansi Nyakato has stepped forward to strip away the contractor's remaining justifications — funding has been released, land has been cleared, and yet the work crawls. In the long human story of public infrastructure, this moment asks a familiar and uncomfortable question: when every obstacle has been removed, what does continued delay reveal about th
Shadow Minister demands contractor accelerate Hoima road project
Excuses have expired and results are now the only currency
Mark
Why does a road project in Uganda matter enough to make national news in August?
Mimi
Because it's not really about the road. It's about whether the government can deliver on a promise before the whole world is watching in 2027.
Mark
The contractor has had funding and compensation sorted out—so what's actually holding things up?
Mimi
That's the question Nyakato is asking too. At this point, it's not money or land disputes. It's execution. And that's harder to excuse.
Mark
Is 35 to 40 percent completion actually slow, or is that normal for a project this size?
Mimi
For a 145-kilometre road with a 2027 deadline and all the prerequisites already in place, it's slow enough that a shadow minister is calling it out publicly.
Mark
What does Nyakato actually want to happen?
Mimi
She wants the contractor to accelerate. To stop talking about obstacles and start delivering. The revised timeline exists—now it needs to be met.
Mark
If they don't meet it, what's the consequence?
Mimi
That's the unspoken threat. A major road project unfinished when AFCON arrives becomes a story about government failure, not contractor delays.
Le Pouls
- A 145km road critical to Uganda's AFCON 2027 preparations is only 35-40% complete, leaving an enormous gap between promise and reality.
- The contractor's go-to defences — funding shortfalls and unresolved land compensation — have been publicly dismantled by Shadow Minister Nyakato, leaving no cover for further inaction.
- With an international sporting deadline now serving as a hard wall, the project has shifted from a routine infrastructure matter into a test of national credibility.
- Political pressure is mounting from the opposition benches, with Nyakato positioning herself as the accountability voice for communities along the Hoima corridor.
- The next move belongs to the contractor — either accelerate visibly and credibly, or risk the story becoming a broader indictment of infrastructure delivery in Uganda.
Along a 145-kilometre corridor linking Busunju to Kiboga to Hoima, a road rehabilitation project sits frozen at less than half its journey while the clock moves steadily toward Uganda's hosting of the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations. Shadow Minister Asinansi Nyakato has stepped forward to strip away the contractor's remaining justifications — funding has been released, land has been cleared, and yet the work crawls. In the long human story of public infrastructure, this moment asks a familiar and uncomfortable question: when every obstacle has been removed, what does continued delay reveal about those entrusted to build?
The road from Busunju through Kiboga to Hoima — 145 kilometres of it — is supposed to be finished. Instead, it sits somewhere between 35 and 40 percent complete, and Asinansi Nyakato, Shadow Minister for Works and Transport and Woman MP for Hoima City, has decided that silence on the matter is no longer an option.
For months, the contractor leaned on familiar excuses: funding had not been fully released, and compensating landowners along the route was a complicated, unresolved process. Nyakato has now closed both of those doors. The government has disbursed what was promised. Affected persons have received their compensation. The money is in place and the land is clear — what remains is simply the work, and the work is not moving fast enough.
What gives this moment its particular urgency is the 2027 Africa Cup of Nations, which Uganda will host. This road is expected to be complete before then, and that deadline transforms the project from a development priority into a matter of national reputation. Nyakato is using AFCON as leverage, making plain that excuses have a shelf life and that shelf life has now expired.
The pressure she is applying is both political and practical. A road limping along at 40 percent while an international deadline approaches becomes a symbol — of either accountability or its absence. Whether the contractor responds to that pressure, or whether parliament is forced to escalate, will determine what kind of story this ultimately becomes.
The 145-kilometre road connecting Busunju to Kiboga to Hoima remains stubbornly incomplete, sitting at somewhere between 35 and 40 percent finished despite the government having already released the money needed to build it. This is the problem Asinansi Nyakato, the Shadow Minister for Works and Transport and the Woman MP for Hoima City, has decided to make public and urgent.
Nyakato is done accepting the usual explanations. For months, the contractor has pointed to funding gaps and the complicated business of compensating people whose land sits in the project's path. Both of those obstacles, Nyakato says, no longer exist. The government has paid out what was promised. The affected persons have been compensated. The money is there. The land is clear. What remains is the work itself, and the work is moving too slowly.
What makes this moment different is the calendar. The Africa Cup of Nations is coming to Uganda in 2027, and this road is supposed to be finished before then. It is a deadline with weight—the kind that transforms a infrastructure project from a routine development priority into a matter of national reputation. Nyakato is using that deadline as leverage, essentially telling the contractor that excuses have expired and results are now the only acceptable currency.
The pressure is political and practical at once. A major road project that limps along at 40 percent completion while the clock ticks toward an international sporting event becomes a symbol of either competence or failure. Nyakato, speaking from the opposition benches, has positioned herself as the voice demanding accountability. She is saying what many people in Hoima and along that corridor are likely already thinking: the obstacles have been removed, the money is there, so why is this taking so long?
What happens next depends on whether the contractor responds to the pressure or whether Nyakato and others in parliament escalate their demands. The revised completion timeline exists, which means someone has already done the math on what needs to happen and when. The question now is whether the contractor will move to meet it, or whether this becomes a larger story about why a major infrastructure project cannot be finished on time even when the conditions for finishing it have been met.
Citations marquantes
Delays can no longer be blamed on funding or compensation of project-affected persons— Asinansi Nyakato, Shadow Minister for Works and Transport
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