At least 70 kilometres of roads will have been constructed by the end of this fiscal year, the City of Kigali has announced. Emmanuel Katabarwa, the city engineer told The New Times that studies are ongoing to pave the way for expropriation activities ahead of the commencement of the construction works. “We are going to start constructing about 21 sections of roads during this fiscal year. We are now in the expropriation process on some roads as others are still in design. As soon as expropriation is finished we will start construction,” he said. He said there is no exact date of commencement because expropriation will depend on residents’ maximum collaboration and will to avail necessary documents required to be expropriated and compensated. “We are telling residents to fully participate in the expropriation process by availing the required documents on time to get paid on time and start construction on time. We hope that the expropriation process could be complete by October this year. This means in two or three months ahead we could start constructing some of the planned roads,” he said. Katabarwa said that residents who have issues of required documents that are given by the government can be facilitated to get them so as to fast-track the expropriation process. “Such projects are delayed by property owners who do not provide full needed information and documents to be compensated for expropriation. We plan to complete the roads by the end of this fiscal year (at the end of June next year) but sometimes we face other challenges such as heavy rains, features of some roads among others that can derail the construction progress,” he said. A glance at the planned roads Some of the major roads to be constructed, he said, include Mulindi-Gasogi-Rusororo-Kabuga road, Miduha-Mageragere road, Migina-Control Technique road. “The road from Migina area to Control Technique will connect to one from Gasabo district towards Airtel headquarters and Sports View Hotel in front of Amahoro stadium. The road will continue from Control Technique, through Remera and connect to Kimironko,” he said. Katabarwa added that another planned road in this phase is Zindiro-Masizi-Birembo-Kami-Gasanze road which stretches for 10.4km saying that it is already “under design”. The planned roads also include Remera-Baho Hospital. “This is the road from Nyabisindu to Baho Hospital also connected to one from Nyarutarama towards Gishushu,” he noted. The project also includes the construction of Rugenge-Muhima hospital-Nyabugogo at Mutangana market. “This road from where the new RURA headquarters are being constructed (in what used to be called lower Kiyovu) will help to decongest major roads in case of traffic jam,” he said. Sonatube-Sahara road is among the other roads to be tarmacked, according to Katabarwa, saying that it will be linked to the one from Kabeza. He added that Busanza-Muyange road around Kagarama of Kicukiro district will also be constructed under this phase. “This means we want to connect Kanombe and Kicukiro without having to come to Giporoso,” he said. He said all such connected roads will significantly reduce congestion in bigger roads. Meanwhile the city engineer said Giporoso-Kabuga highway will be expanded under the project by Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA). “Studies are being carried out for this project,” he said. The 70km road network is part of Kigali Infrastructure Project (KIP) to build a 215 kilometres road network and several bridges by 2024. Over 2, 009 households might be expropriated to pave the way for construction activities, the city officials said. Although Katabarwa didn’t disclose the total budget, he assured that the government is ready to avail the budget depending on what is needed every year.
