Residents protest over street darkness in Kabale town

By Moses agaba

Kabale

Residents and Businessmen in Kabale municipality, Kabale district are protesting over the darkness in town following the non-functional street lights.

The street lights along the Mbarara – Kabale – Kisoro highway through the Kabale town were supplied by the Kiboko group of Companies and installed by Reynolds construction company-RCC in February 2016 under the contract of the Uganda National Roads Authority –UNRA, from which they were given a guarantee period of two years effectively working though repairs started appearing after 11 months and as of now there are no street lights there that are functional even after shifting them from Solar to Umeme Electricity.

Kabale town during day time

Residents that include Moses Mwesigwa , David Baryomunsi and Sam Agaba say that it’s so unfortunate to find that the intended role of street lights on to why they’re installed is not implemented as streets such as from Kabale roundabout to Rwakaraba along Kabala – Kisoro highway and along Kabale-Katuna are not functional adding that criminals are using it as an advantage to rob property from people and sometimes murders are registered.

They further say that it is unfortunate that municipal council authorities have been silent about such a blackout.

William Musinga , Wilfred Muhwezi who are Boda Boda riders in Kabale Town also say that it’s becoming very difficult for them to recognize customers especially when it’s at night adding that the criminals have taken it as an advantage to rob them hence this affecting their work, especially at night.

Elly Maate the Kigezi Region Police Spokesperson also raises a concern that the security department is also worried about the darkness within the town, where the criminals now hide on Main Street because as a result.

Maate adds that the police cameras that were installed on certain points have also not been effectively functioning due to the street light’s failure to work. He requested the concerned authorities to look into the matter.

Eric Sunday the Kabale municipality Deputy town clerk says that UNRA authorities are solely responsible for the streetlights and that UNRA shifted the street lights from Solar and connected the lights on UMEME which to him he thinks that UMEME could have disconnected the street lights due to UNRA to fail to pay the bills.

Sunday says that however much they have several times alerted UNRA about the problem they have kept a deaf ear, adding that if they have failed to repair the nonfunctional streetlights they should write to municipal authorities and they take charge of repairing them.