The entry of Chinese firms into road construction in Uganda has seen the billing rates per kilometre brought down as compared to the past when the work was dominated by European and American firms.

According Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA) head of Corporate Affairs, Mr Dan Alinange, four years ago the agency would spend $1.2m on a kilometre but this has now dropped to about $800,000 a kilometre following the entry of several Chinese firms in the construction sector.

“We advertise our tenders internationally and receive responses from all over the world. Many of the Chinese companies are technically competent and financially cheaper,” said Mr Alinange in an interview over the weekend.

There have been reports that government agencies like UNRA favour Chinese firms over local and other international firms yet their quality of work is wanting at times.

“The Chinese firms are competent and do work of similar quality like the Europeans and Americans,” said Mr Alinange. “The people bad-mouthing Chinese firms are just finding it hard to compete with them.”

He added: “Our only fear is that these prices will escalate after the Chinese have kicked out all the other competitors. We have to find a way of keeping other competitors around.”

However, the dean of School of Engineering at Makerere University, Eng Umaru Bagampadde, said despite government favouring Chinese firms, their quality of work does not compare with counterparts from Europe and America. He said Chinese firms are only interested in dominating the market but the reality is that they do not make profits out of these contracts.

“Most of these Chinese firms are owned by government of China and they are assisted by Chinese banks which give them money and time. They want to establish local dominance and after that they will hike their prices. They only care about breaking even now, not making profits,” said Mr Bagampadde.

The Soroti Municipality MP, Capt. Mike Mukula, who has interests in construction, said Chinese firms have formed a cartel and are now difficult to defeat.

“They are cheaper and everything is shipped from China and this gives them advantage over other firms that depend on bank loans to buy equipment,” Capt Mukula said.

The Daily Monitor caught up with Mr Dan Alinange, the head of corporate affairs at UNRA one of the government departments that are allocated large sums of money on reports of fraud and corruption surfacing among leading taxpayers to question how these funds are utilised.

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