Mitano Bridge a death trap for tourism-Kanungu

In Uganda’s quest for development and desire to meet the millennium development goals, the country has undertaken several development initiatives. None is as promising as the tourism industry which fetches the country millions of dollars every year. In fact, tourism is one of the top three foreign exchange earners for the country accounting for a huge percentage of the country’s Gross Domestic Product.

However, the country might lose lots of revenue due to the dilapidated state of the bridge on the Rukungiri – Kanungu border. This bridge connects areas that offer great tourist attractions such as the Mountain gorillas in Bwindi impenetrable forest national park and the tree climbing lions of the Ishasha sector found on Uganda’s border with the Democratic republic of Congo.

This bridge which was built in the early 1930’s has been weakened due to fact that people are vandalizing the bridge and removing pieces of metal bars to be sold as scrap which is a lucrative business for the local scrap metal dealers in the area. The Kanungu and Rukungiri District Works and Technical Services departments are wary that the bridge could colapse anytime. This has forced tourists and tour operators to take the longer route through Ishasha, Kanungu and Kabale districts further increasing the costs of a given Uganda tour. However, this was not the case four years ago in 2004 when the construction of the road joining Ntungamo district to Rukungiri was completed. Being a shorter route, all tourist to Bwindi impenetrable forest national park going for gorilla tracking and Ishasha sector with its tree climbing lions used this bridge.

The district authorities have promised to undertake measure to stop the vandalism and also asked the Ministry of Works, Transport and Communication to remedy the situation.

It is unfortunate that the high number of tourists that are visiting the region might have to drop due to the increased costs of travel as a result of the detour to these safari destinations. It is high time the body responsible for tourism and the Ministry of Tourism, Trade and Industry acted really fast to curb the situation.

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