Africa’s Road Maintenance Funds Association (ARMFA) has praised the Uganda Road Fund (URF) for creating the URF Towers, calling it one of the nicest structures held by a national road fund on the continent.
URF, which is monitored and governed by the Works and Transport Ministry, recently celebrated a decade of operation and proudly displayed its beautiful permanent headquarters this week.
On Thursday, the chief executive officers (CEOs) of over 15 African nations that oversee road funds honored executive director Andrew Naimanye, URF, and Uganda for their pioneering efforts.
This occurred during the ARMFA Executive Committee (ExCo) Board meeting in Kampala. The four-day continental extravaganza, which began on Wednesday, November 22, and lasted on Saturday, featured Africa’s greatest fashion and dialects, as well as the official trilingual ways of communication of French, Portuguese, and English.
As part of their national trip, the delegates visited this architectural gem and will look into Uganda’s current infrastructure and road initiatives to benchmark and compare notes.
“I am also pleased to announce that our very own CEO of Uganda Road Fund, Dr. Eng. Andrew Naimanye, has been elected as ARMFA’s First Vice President.” “We congratulate him on this achievement and for hosting this ARMFA ExCo meeting in Kampala, Uganda,” remarked the principal guest, Gen. Edward Katumba Wamala.
Host Naimanye basked in the spotlight, promising that Uganda’s outstanding financial commitments to ARMFA would be met before the end of the fiscal year.
“We need to meet regularly and ensure that all the countries that are not active and those which are semi-active improve their commitment to ARMFA,” he went on to say.
Katumba lauded Naimanye and his staff for the mammoth project, which cost the Ugandan government more than Sh50 billion to build.
Eng. Naimanye lauded Katumba for his contribution in Africa’s peacekeeping efforts in Somalia and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and praised him as a well-decorated military leader who had strengthened Africa’s peace operations in his previous post as army commander before being elevated to minister.
“My colleagues, we are privileged to have Gen. Katumba here with us. He has had a significant impact on the current state of peace. “He served as Commander of the Defence Forces at one time and recently became an author after writing a book titled Endurance a Sure Shot to Victory,” Naimanye noted in his introductory remarks.
The 10-story twin-tower building is similarly made up of two distinct wings linked by a central circulation core. Parking, a café, a gym, a childcare center, general reception, and a lobby are among the common amenities.
Robinah Nabbanja, Prime Minister of Uganda, who unveiled the skyscraper in August this year, praised the government and President Museveni for investing in this famous edifice in Nakasero, Kampala.
The Fund is responsible for funding the Annual Road Maintenance Programmes (ARMP) carried out by the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), and other approved entities responsible for district, urban, and community access roads.
The structure is a collaboration between two government organizations, URF and the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Authority (PPDA), which is the primary regulatory agency for public procurement and disposal. The public procurement legislation must be followed by all government departments and organizations.
ARMFA’s second VP Mohammed Kallon, Dr Ali Alkassoum, chairperson of the West Africa Focal Group, Pr. Angelo Antonio Macuacua, Ali Ipinge, and Fotor Abdel Djoubar were among those present.
Rashid Mohamed, Nkekeletse Makara, and Moussa Savadogo were among the others.
Moussa Aubin Essaie, president of ARMFA in Cameroon, addressed the participants in French, speaking via an English translator. He thanked URF for hosting the trip and pledged further help from his continental association.
According to Naimanye, the conference attendees included other CEOs of African road funds from both Francophone and Anglophone nations who came to share notes, stating that collaboration is essential since there is no need to reinvent the wheel. Namibia is one of the 34 nations covered by ARMFA.
With only five females from the foreign delegation in attendance, it was a male-dominated occasion.
For the first time since the continental body’s inception, the ARMFA – ExCO meeting was conducted in Uganda in preparation for the ARMFA Annual General Assembly, which will be held in Ivory Coast in January 2024.
