FEATURED: Kigali-Gatuna road back to full operation
Saturday, May 19, 2018

Horizon Construction, the subsidiary of Horizon Group Limited has completed emergency repair works on the Kigali-Gatuna highway and had managed to normalize traffic on the busy highway by Wednesday night.

Arriving on site on Friday afternoon, traffic was normal as freight trucks to and from Uganda passed with ease on top of commuter buses and private vehicles.

Following the mudslide that caused a cave off from the road, and which affected about 500 metres on the road.

This led police to restrict heavy trucks from the road as repairs were going on.

Engineer Filemon Muhire, Kigali-Gatuna road project manager for Horizon said that the damage caused by the heavy rain was really huge which required them to work day and night to make sure the road get back to normal operation as soon as possible.

"Taking into consideration that this road has a great impact on freight transport for Rwanda and neighbouring countries, we were compelled to bring in extra manpower to complete the work as soon as possible.

"We brought many excavators and hired extra workers who dedicated all their efforts to it. The deadline was in one week but we managed to complete it in three days and now grateful that we were able to complete the initial task of making the road operational within the shortest time possible.

"The work will continue as we put the asphalt layer but in the meantime, trucks and other cars are passing normally,” he argued.

The rupture of road followed the ruinous rains that led to a cave-in of the heavily-used road which occurred at about 77 kilometres from Kigali towards the Gatuna Border Post.

The highway, probably the country’s busiest by traffic volumes, which links the country to the port of Mombasa, Kenya through Uganda, stretches 87.4 kilometres, from Kigali to Gatuna border post.

It mainly serves as the main transport corridor between Rwanda, Uganda, Kenya and Burundi.