People love to call Kigyezi the “Switzerland of Africa.” It is easy for a visitor to see why. The land rises into sharp, near-vertical peaks. The hills are carved into green terraces, one step above another, and the morning mist floats over Lake Bunyonyi like a soft blanket. The highest parts in the south, the areas our ancestors called Bushengyera (today’s Ndorwa, Rubanda and Rukiga districts) and Bufumbira (Kisoro district), are some of the most beautiful places God ever made.
Yet a visitor to this jewel today does not find a proud gateway to tourism. Instead, they find a national embarrassment. The road works from Kabaare to Bunyonyi and from Kisoro to Mgahinga have been abandoned completely. What remains is half-dug earth, deep and dangerous gullies, and a broken promise to our economy.
This is not just one project that went wrong. It is a warning. It shows what happens when the rules of foreign lenders are allowed to defeat plain common sense. And it points to a bigger sickness: our stubborn habit of hiring foreign companies to build Uganda, while our own well-trained engineers sit and watch from the sidelines.
The story of how we reached this point reads like a sad comedy of poor choices. On June 13, 2025, with speeches and political celebration, the contract to pave this important tourism route was launched. The winner was Samcrete Egypt Engineers and Contractors. On paper, Samcrete looked impressive. It is a giant Egyptian firm worth billions of dollars, a company that has built large housing estates, car factories and industrial parks across the flat Egyptian desert.
But desert sand is not mountain clay, and the flat ground of Cairo is nothing like the steep, slippery, landslide-prone hills of Bushengyera and Bufumbira. Samcrete had almost no experience building roads high up in mountains like ours.
Our own technical experts at the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) noticed this mismatch early and warned about it. I am reliably told that Allen Kagina, who was then the Executive Director of UNRA, worked hard to save the country from the very mess we are now in. Her expert advice was pushed aside.
Why was Allen Kagina ignored? Because of the power of money. The African Development Bank (AfDB) paid 85 percent of the project’s cost through a development loan. Under the bank’s strict rules, contracts are usually handed to the biggest company that offers the lowest price. Samcrete’s huge size and cheap bid ticked the bank’s boxes. In the end, the bank’s rules mattered more than the reality of our hills.
The result was easy to predict. After a year of delays and struggle with the steep ground, Samcrete had finished a shameful two percent of the work. Then it quietly packed up its machines, pulled down its signposts, and walked away. Our government was left to begin the slow, messy job of cancelling the contract.
As the Ministry of Works and Transport rushes to find a new contractor, it must also rewrite the rules of the game. We cannot afford to fail a second time on the road to Bunyonyi.
First, our negotiators must insist on what are called “geographic pre-qualification” rules in every foreign-funded loan. In plain words, these are screening rules that force a company to prove it has done similar work in similar places before it is even allowed to bid. A company should have to show that it knows the local ground, soil and weather. If a bank like the AfDB is paying for a road on a mountain, the rules must require that the bidder has already built strong, lasting roads on slopes and soils like ours. Deep pockets must never again stand in for the skill of building in hard terrain.
Second, we must protect the project’s money with a rule often called “ring-fencing.” This simply means the funds are locked to the agreed purpose alone, and the project is shielded if a partner company runs into money trouble elsewhere.
Third, foreign contractors should never again work alone on Ugandan soil. The new rules must require any foreign winner to hand at least 30 to 40 percent of the main construction work to local Ugandan engineering firms. That way, even if the foreign partner collapses back home, Ugandan teams are already on the ground and the work keeps moving.
The Samcrete failure forces us to face a harder question. Why does Uganda keep hiring foreign firms to build its roads when our own universities produce brilliant civil, structural and geotechnical engineers every single year? The usual answer is one word: “capacity.” We are told that local firms do not own enough heavy machinery, do not have millions in ready cash, and have not managed big highway projects before.
But this argument chases its own tail. Local companies will never build up that capacity if they are forever locked out of the very projects that would give it to them. Each time the government or a city council chooses a foreign group, it starves our own firms of the money and experience they need to grow.
We also have proof at home that the “shortage of skill” story is a myth. When public anger over Kampala’s terrible potholes reached its peak, our leaders skipped the slow corporate route and ordered the Uganda People’s Defence Force Engineering Brigade to step in. Using local minds, local hands and quick action, the soldiers rebuilt the roads on time. They showed clearly that Ugandan engineers can deliver when they are trusted and given the job.
Our habit of leaning on foreigners is really a symptom of our dependence on foreign loans, and a quiet vote of no confidence in our own engineering schools. When we depend on outside lenders to fund our development, we hand them control over our building. The lenders choose the contractor, the foreign firms take the profits, and Uganda is left holding both the debt and the dusty, unfinished road.
The stalled road to Lake Bunyonyi must become a turning point. Real national development cannot be bought off a shelf from a foreign giant that does not understand the soil of our ancestors and stops caring the moment the money lands in its overseas bank account.
As we search for a company to replace Samcrete, the government must put local skill first and push back against rigid foreign banking rules. Let us trust our own civil engineers, invest seriously in our home-grown construction firms, and pay for our vital tourism roads with our own national road fund whenever we can. Uganda has the brains, the stones and the engineering talent to build its own future. It is time we stopped asking foreign hands to pave our way. Otherwise, why do we celebrate our Independence Day every year with such grand speeches and fanfare?
©Muniini K. Mulera