Who is Allen Catherine Kagina? Flash Uganda Media looks at her biography, early life, education, parents, marriage, husband and family of Executive Director of the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA).
Allen Catherine Kagina is Ugandan administrator, the Executive Director of the Uganda National Roads Authority (UNRA), mother and a wife. She is much known for good administrative skills, hard work and integrity credited by almost everybody in the country for her excellent service.
Kagina is one leader who believes in managing transitions at corporate and personal levels. A very strict person, and when it comes to the authorization of funding she pays zero tolerance to corruption.
Kagina’s entire focus is on building people’s skills, systems, and a new culture at UNRA. Her approach has been almost similar to the program she used as CG at URA.
Kagina is a proven corporate reformer, after her years as head of the URA that saw it transformed from a low performing den of corruption to an efficient, result-oriented and relating clean organization.
Allen Catherine Kagina – Early Life and Education
Allen Catherine Kagina was born in 1961 to Hezron Kakuyo and Catherine Kakuyo in Rukungiri District, Western Uganda. She is a sister to Lorna Magara, Jocelyn Kyobutungi Rugunda, wife to Uganda’s Prime Minister, Ruhakana Rugunda as well as Caleb Kakuyo former Chief Commercial Officer at National Housing and Construction Corporation among others.
Allen Kagina attended Gayaza High School, a prestigious boarding school for both O and A-Level.
From Gayaza, Kagina joined Makerere University Kampala, Uganda’s oldest and largest prestigious public university and attained a Bachelor of Science degree in Psychology.
Kagina later proceeded with her studies and attained a Master’s Degree in Public Administration from the University of Liverpool in the United Kingdom (UK).
Kagina Kagina – Work and Experience
Kagina started her career in 1985 as a teaching assistant at Makerere University. She later moved to the Office of the President.
In 1992, Kagina joined the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) as a senior principal revenue officer, serving in that capacity until 1998.
In 2000, she was promoted to the rank of deputy commissioner for customs at URA, serving in that capacity until 2001.
In 2004, Kagina was appointed Commissioner General of URA. She is credited with improving the URA’s financial performance and awarded the Corporate Leadership Award in February 2006, by Destiny Consult, an industry group, for turning around the performance of the tax body since her appointment to head the organization in 2004.
In October 2010, her contract was renewed for another three years. Her monthly salary was reported to be UGX: 28 million (approximately: USD11.250).
On 27 April 2015, John Byabagambi, the Ugandan Minister for Works and Transport at that time, appointed her as the Executive Director of the Uganda Roads Authority (UNRA), effective 1 May 2015.
Kagina replaced Eng. Bernard Ssebbugga Kimeze who was acting in the position before he was suspended following a controversy surrounding the tender for the construction of the Mukono-Katosi road.
After transforming Uganda’s tax authority, Kagina joined the Uganda National Roads Authority to revitalize the organization and tackle corruption, after transforming Uganda’s tax body.
On 1st May 2015 when President Yoweri Museveni appointed Allen Kagina to head the Uganda UNRA, the body had sunk deep into jaw-dropping corruption. Exposure and investigations into the infamous Mukono-Katosi saga in which UNRA lost about Shs25 billion in a scheme abetted by some of its managers led to a mass sacking.
Still, Kagina needed to know the manner, extent, and means by which previous managers enriched themselves fraudulently on taxpayers’ money.
Many institutional reforms have laid the foundations for a new era for UNRA with Kagina, characterized by transparency, efficiency, and improved service for the Ugandan people.
With the fruits of the restructure and reforms that emerged, UNRA is keen to focus on the substantial task of paying the country’s 145,000km of roads and accommodating the burgeoning oil and gas sector.
Private sector involvement in the major road works is critical for success, and Mrs Kagina invites foreign partners to help pave the way for Uganda’s growth.
Kagina narrates that as the former Commissioner General URA, she got the opportunity to restructure the organization, which allowed her to create new teams and resolve issues of incompetency and corruption that had plagued the organization which helped her a lot in her current career as UNRA CG.
“I had a lot of support from the government, the board of UTRA, and the Ugandan public to make major changes to the organization. I was Commissioner-General, we made a lot of progress, but it was a team effort, supported and financed by the government. Overseeing transformational reforms at UTRA gave me an edge in dealing with similar issues at UNRA.”
Kagina says Corruption, poor service, and a lack of engagement with communities affected Uganda’s road works.
“In 2015, we had almost the same level of public disgust with UNRA as we once had with UTRA, coming from the outside poses its challenges – you do not know the institution as well as those who have been here for many years. Again, we’ve had a lot of support from our board and government. We went through a restructure, made a commitment to transformational change, and were given the financial resources to achieve that promise.”
Kagina further says the road sector is significantly different than the tax sector. The public must see the completed road to believing you are accomplishing anything.
However, the construction industry is a multi-year industry, unlike a tax, where you collect yearly revenue and demonstrate results annually.
Even if it takes time, Kagina says they are laying down the foundations for long-term change. Still, there have been visible and serious changes in the roads over the last few years.
“We are putting more paved kilometres down every year, we are seeing faster turnaround of payments, and we have shaved procurement timelines down from two years to 6-8 months by streamlining administrative reviews.”
Commenting on corruption in the sector, Kagina says it is being addressed, because the media is very free, which means that whenever they do something wrong, the media reports it extensively. It is not easy to hide things for long.
Additionally, Kagina stresses that institutions and the president have been very vocal about tackling corruption. So, for that reason, they are working hard to improve the sector’s systems to make them more transparent and implement processes for greater accountability.
Kagina in her view says corruption thrives where information is hidden. “And we have committed to the public to end those practices. It is a continuous fight, but we are seeing results. We are putting more paved kilometres down every year, we are seeing faster turnaround of payments, and we have shaved procurement timelines down from two years to 6-8 months.”
“We have a huge road network in this country. Uganda is not a very large country in the African context, yet we have 145,000km of roads in different shapes and conditions. Of that, 20,500km are part of the national network that crisis-crosses the country from border to border.”
“We have roads to primary areas of production and roads that link urban centres. The rest of the roads are managed municipally. Of that entire network, the paved network is only about 5,200km.”
“Of those 5,200km of paved roads, 4,000km is the UNRA network. This means a lot of the roads are in rough condition. In the mid-1980s, we had less than 1,000km paved in the whole country.”
There has been progressing, but there is still a lot to be done says Kagina. As part of the National Plan, they aim to pave 300km of tarmac every year. They want to set targets higher than that if resources are available.
UNRA can work on some of the smaller sections of the road, but the private sector provides critical partnerships for the larger road works says Kagina.
At the start of her tenure, Kagina had an enormous task at hand to prepare Uganda’s roads for the upcoming oil and gas operations. Approximately 600km of roads were required to be laid out before the oil business commences of which they have worked hard to achieve.
“In December 2016 we learned that we had to lay 600km of roads before the oil starts flowing in 2020, which gave us a two-year timeline for procurement and construction. To meet this very tight deadline, we set up a special task force comprised of specialists devoted to this 600km that would fast-track every single process from data collection, design, feasibility studies, land acquisition, and environmental studies.”
Kagina says the task force has been doing this since January 2017, and by the end of 2017, UNRA had already accomplished the procurement process and signed several contracts.
UNRA made sure that they complete the actual construction between 2018 and 2019, as the roads need to be functional and the heavy equipment in place by 2020.
In doing this, UNRA made sure that ecosystems were not destabilized by drawing better concern on the environment, such as water streams and animal crossings where they did thorough environmental studies.
UNRA as well made sure that the challenging parts of the pathways are completed and the equipment can still move even though the roads will not be fully paved by 2020 to meet their deadlines.
However, in the road construction process, UNRA makes sure that in their tenders in any project, local contractors 30 per cent participation must be local contractors. In this case, foreign contractors are encouraged to look for local partners.
The UK companies according to Kagina are directly involved in Uganda’s roads by supporting two challenging projects developing oil roads through one of the game parks, and UNRA receives financing from UK Export Finance.
“We have had several engagements with them, and British companies are participating in these projects. We have thousands of kilometres of roads to pave, and we hope to attract British companies to come work in Uganda on these projects. The opportunities are there, and we’re looking for good contractors that can help us build good roads. We’ve interacted with several British companies who have come for exploratory visits.”
Kagina says when reviewing tenders, they review the technical and financial bids holistically, so they are not limited to selecting whichever firm can create the lowest bid.
“We want our local companies to grow and believe that British companies can be extraordinary partners in terms of supervision and project design to help us facilitate that capacity building. Uganda’s economy has been fairly stable for a long period. We live in a country that has enjoyed peace for 30 years now, so the systems are in place to serve investors.”
“We can improve, of course, but which country can’t? We are keen to forge new partnerships with British companies that can come and work in the infrastructure sector, which is the foundation of the growth of our economy. We also want our local companies to grow and believe that British companies can be extraordinary partners in terms of supervision and project design to help us facilitate that capacity building.”
Allen Kagina’s next plan for roads in 2020
Kagina, a determined woman, said a lot has been done and more will be done in the coming months or years in line with roads and ferries development.
“UNRA is currently upgrading 23 road projects (new construction and upgrading from gravel to paved bituminous standards) covering a total distance of 1,581km, Kagina said. This represents over 50% achievement of the annual physical performance target of 40km equivalent in the half-year period.”
Kagina and the 1500 strong team she oversees at UNRA have set their sights on upcoming projects in the national roads network program that totals 1,715km.
“This will need Shs6.5 trillion over three years,” said Patrick Muleme, the UNRA Head of Design and Network Planning. This means that UNRA will require additional funding to meet its budget especially with regards to the project’s implementations.
UNRA has been designing and planning expressways, flyovers in the city on top of expanding and maintaining the national road network which is in progress.
Land acquisition headache
UNRA needs about Shs400billion this financial year of 2020/21 to settle compensation issues. However, this money is currently unavailable yet more projects are coming onboard meaning that UNRA will have to work harder on a leaner budget.
By the end of FY 2018/2019, UNRA had a debt of Shs47billion. Also, the ongoing projects under Government of Uganda development have a deficit of Shs500billion, Kagina said in 2019.
She added, “This means that the allocated budget to the 2019/20 work plan is short by approximately Shs980billion.”
Of the Shs4.2trillion, Shs71billion is for wages of the over 1500 staff employed by UNRA.
Allen Kagina – Key achievements as UNRA boss
Allen Kagina has managed to fight corruption and cancelled some illicit road contracts.
Restructuring: The Board approved the new UNRA structure with a total establishment of 9 Directorates and 1740 staff members. The staff established increased from about 1000 to 1740. Staff salaries increased by almost 3 fold in most positions.
Kagina made her first public move that came five months after she started work, she asked all 900 workers in UNRA, to reapply for their jobs. The screening exercise was part of a grander restructuring that was planned to raise the staff levels to 1700.
There were public uproar and threats of lawsuits. But Kagina’s core team appeared prepared for that and quietly quashed any dissent.
Stakeholders’ engagements: UNRA have had constructive engagements with local Government leaders, Property Affected Persons (PAPs), Members of Parliament, the Media, Development Partners, Service Provider and Civil Society Organizations. At the regional level, UNRA initiated the East African Road Authorities’ Forum. These engagements have increased UNRA’s social capital in terms of improved relationships, networks and partnerships.
In-house design capacity which has not only improved the quality of road designs but also saved the taxpayer billions of shillings. UNRA staffs designed all the rehabilitation roads, feasibility studies and preliminary designs for over 500km of oil roads. The same team completed the design of Atiak – Adjumani road funded by the EU.
UNRA established the Construction Unit: When Kagina joined UNRA; she promised that UNRA would construct roads using in-house capacity. Most people including her colleagues thought it was not possible. Today UNRA have made substantial progress in establishing the construction unit; the staff has been recruited and procurement of equipment.
UNRA managed to supervise in-house Moroto, Koboko-Maracha and Kamuli town roads, Rushere – Nshwerenkye and Nakalama – Tirinyi – Mbale roads. Now construction of 10km Kitala – Gerenge road is in progress expected to see completion in August 2020 despite the coronavirus pandemic affecting the nation.
In-house Land Acquisition: UNRA stopped using consultants for land acquisition because of inefficiencies and corruption. They are now using in-house Teams and the process is much improved. Titles are being processed and returned to owners within a short time which was not the case before Kagina.
Procurement: UNRA has stopped insider trading and significantly reduced corruption in the procurement process. The remaining pockets of corruption in procurement are being investigated and the culprits will soon be brought to book. Those involved in corruption have no place in UNRA said Kagina the UNRA boss.
The Fika Salama Initiative: This initiative in collaboration with Uganda Police Force, drastically reduced road carnage on Kampala – Masaka road which had reached alarming proportions.
Road reserve: UNRA started the clearing of the road reserve by demolishing structures which were paid for but Project Affected Persons refused to vacate. According to Kagina, UNRA enforcement team has done a good job in sensitizing people not to encroach on the road reserve.
Social and environment safeguards: UNRA has made significant progress in turning around compliance with environmental and social safeguards which caused the cancellation of financing of Fort Portal – Kamwenge road project by the World Bank. According to Kagina UNRA is now a model in implementing social and environmental safeguards in Uganda.
Improved Systems: UNRA has improved the payment system which has significantly reduced delays in paying service providers. A modern IT system is being installed to replace the obsolete system Kagina and the team found in place. Internal controls have been strengthened; the vigilance of internal audit in verifying variations has saved the taxpayers a lot of money claimed by unscrupulous service providers.
Reduced cost legal service: UNRA stopped outsourcing legal services from private law firms. Kagina and the team found a huge bill of over sh17 billion which UNRA owed to law firms. We now handle all cases in-house and our team has won most of them which saved a lot of money.
UNRA Regulations: Since the enhancement of the UNRA in 2016, more than 10 years ago, there were no regulations to operationalize the Act. As a result, UNRA drafted the regulations; the Board approved them and submitted to the Minister of Works to issue a statutory instrument.
Strategic Plan: New strategic plan was drawn by Kagina team to provide the direction UNRA will take in its service.
Other achievement completed road projects by Kagina team
- Atiak – Nimule
- Ishaka – Kagamba
- Bundibugyo/Nyahuka Town roads
- Ntugamo – Mirama Hills
- Fort portal – Kamwenge
- Jinja – Kamuli
- Koboko – Maracha Town roads
- Moroto – Town roads
- 12 bridges were completed in the past 2 years
- Alla (20m) and Enyau (15M) Bridges in Arua Birara Bridges (Span 32m)
- Kyanzuki Bridge on Kasese Kilembe road (Span 39.2m)
- Pakwala (15m) and Nyacara (15m) Bridges in Nebbi
- Goli (20m0 and Nyagak (3 lines of 4.5m dia turbo sider culverts) Bridges in Nebbi
- Mitaano (60m) Bridges in Kanungu and Ntungwe (69m) Bridges in Kasese
- Emergency construction of Ndaiga Bridge along Bugiri-Malaba road section (Span 40m)
- Kabaale Bridge (linking Kyankwanzi to Ngoma in Nakaseke) (Span 100m)
- Ruboni access Bridge to Mt Magaritta tourist Site Kasese.
- Maliba – Nkenda – Bugoye – Nyakalingigo road in Kasese
- Agule – Aleles Ngora Bridge
- Buwanku Bridge on River Mayanja linking Nakaseke to Kyankwanzi in Ngoma Sub County
- 200km was gravelled; and 11,214km underwent routine mechanized maintenance.
- 2 modern ferries were acquired; Wanseko-Panyimur and Zengebe-Namasala
Following her excellent service, Allen Kagina’s contract as UNRA boss was renewed after her five-year term ended. This was announced by the Minister of Works and Transport, Gen Katumba Wamala when he visited the UNRA headquarters in February 2020.
Katumba said that Kagina’s contract has been extended for the next five years, and this was because the organization had achieved a lot under her leadership. This was after an earlier notice from UNRA addressed to Gen Katumba recommending the extension of her contract.
Some of the key challenges faced by Kagina team 2017
Procurement delays caused by internal weaknesses and administrative review caused by bad losers. Evaluations are taking unacceptably too long.
Contract management is still a challenge. Most of them are not fully mobilized in terms of personnel and equipment. It was partly because of poor contract management which led to cancellation and suspension of funding for many road projects by World Bank largely due to poor management of the environment and social safeguards.
Teamwork at all levels is still a challenge. Staff members continue to work in silos and not taking advantage of synergies of working with others. Decision making is slow and sluggish and this is affecting our performance. Most staff lack confidence and fear of taking decision and responsibility.
Inadequate resources particularly transport and other logistical support. The budget for non-wage recurrent is not commensurate to UNRA’s business. This has resulted in inadequate and untimely facilitation.
Staff performance is still low partly due to capacity and in some cases due to incompetence. The productivity of staff is still unacceptably low. This is partly the cause of delayed procurement and completion of projects.
The cost of road construction remains very high with some roads projects going above USD 1 million per kilometre. This is unsustainable; the cost must be brought down.
Delayed feedback to internal and external stakeholders remains a challenge. Request for information or clarifications takes unnecessarily too long to get feedback.
We have also received negative publicity arising from COSASE business in Parliament hence affecting the image of the organization which we are trying to build.
“What I found was an institution, where to give credit where it is due; some good work had been done. There were many kilometres of roads that had been upgraded and rehabilitated, many roads being maintained, several bridges constructed, some ferries operating. However, UNRA was running with many audit queries, lack of clear accountability to the public and too much interference in the procurement process.”
Kagina says many of UNRA’s processes are still manual and bureaucratic meaning that service is not optimum. The UNRA Act requires us to operate in a businesslike manner. The processes that we are reviewing will facilitate new ways of doing business.
Solutions to the challenges made by Kagina
Kagina and her team have tried to put out information and make UNRA processes transparent so that one can tell that when you put in your bid you don’t have to follow it. What she found was that people would place in their bids and then follow from desk to desk.
But now with Kagina, UNRA do not allow contractors to follow their bids desk to desk. They are allowed to seek information through the Public and Corporate Affairs department. For those with questions on land acquisition, UNRA has a call centre and PR desk specifically dealing with land matters.
UNRA has also tried to insulate themselves from middlemen. Whenever there is a problem with any service it creates an industry of brokers. So, according to Kagina, these middlemen are a cost to the economy. They often present themselves to clients as problem solvers but often misinform them about the service they purport to provide.
UNRA has had cases where middlemen extort money from clients to chase contracts and payments on their behalf. Some have gone as far as demanding money from clients in the name of UNRA staff.
Some of them intimidated UNRA staff at work claiming they have been sent by ‘a big person’. Others have incited communities to demonstrate and riot when UNRA is constructing or maintaining roads which today does not exist.
UNRA under Kagina’s leadership has undertaken reforms to address institutional weaknesses related to procurement delays and project management. This was after the Inspectorate General of Government (IGG) produced an investigation report derived from Justice Bamugemereire’s report on fraud and mismanagement of resources that existed in UNRA.
Today UNRA has an investigations Department to follow up on corruption tendencies, fraud and other related cases. Kagina and the team encourage the public to share any information that will help UNRA improve its services.
UNRA boss was seen cancelling some contracts for the construction of key roads case in point is the Musita-Lumino road due to lack of progress in the first years in office.
“When we sign a contract with a company, it is expected to meet standards set out in the contract. Failure to perform attracts various financial and non-financial penalties. UNRA gave the company the contract in 2014 to be completed in September 2017. By this time, the progress of work should have been about 90% completed. They initially complained about lack of access to the site because of slow land acquisition.”
“However, the people in the area had allowed the contractor to proceed even as they, the landowners waited for compensation. Despite several notices to correct, the company failed to perform. By the time of termination of the contract, they had only registered 13% progress. What we do when a contractor is not performing, we give notice of correction and time in which to improve the rate of work. The main problem with this contractor is that they had not fully mobilized equipment to execute the works. The personnel on the ground were changed; the lab did not even meet the UNEBS specifications.”
“There must be a time when government agencies lookout for the best interests of the many and not just a few. We had to decide whether to continue with a contractor who was not performing and we waste taxpayers’ money or we terminate and get somebody better.”
There were also unconfirmed allegations that several people outside the project were benefiting from this contractor by way of fuel for their vehicles and other financial benefits. All these contributed to the termination of their contract.
Kagina says what UNRA is expected to do, is to require any defect to be remedied in case a road breaks down before its intended period. UNRA is expected to retain some money when they are not satisfied. When a road is constructed there must be quality assurance according to UNRA boss all through the sections and if satisfied that it met the standards then they give the completion certificate and then you release the retained money.
“Remember that even after completion there are 12 months of defects liability period so that in that period any defect that we would have identified on the road is repaired by the contractor at his own cost. I don’t know the facts about this one because it was before my time but I think a technical audit was done.”
Allen Catherine Kagina – Family and Religious Affiliation
Allen Kagina is married to Paul Kagina. Together, they are the parents of three children, Dan, Michelle and Mark. She is a born-again Christian who loves praying and singing.
In 2019, Allen Kagina pinned the media for alleged negative news coverage on Pentecostal Pastors. She said several authentic Pastors in Uganda are preaching the true gospel and transforming the communities in which they live.
Kagina reasons that such Pastors are seemingly ignored by media or receive limited news coverage at the expense of their counterparts deemed controversial.
The UNRA boss made the remarks while responding to a journalist’s questions about moral decadence in church leaders today. Kagina was attending the Covenant Music album launch at Covenant Nations Church located in Luzira.
On the issue of false teachers and prophets, Kagina referred to the Bible in Mathew 24:11 saying it warns that in the last day’s false prophets will appear and deceive many people. She adds that believers have to beware, and remain rooted in Christ.
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