Kampala — THE UGANDA National Roads Authority (UNRA) and the Uganda Revenue Authority (URA) have agreed to remove extra axel load from overloaded trucks to reduce road damage by heavy trucks.

Eng. Peter Ssebanakitta, the UNRA executive director, said the damage had increased the cost of road maintenance.

He said the previous arrangement where errant drivers were fined and left to continue was not working, adding that the extra load would be impounded and kept by URA.

Ssebanakitta said the arrangement would involve removing of customs seals of the overloaded trucks.

However, he said, this would not apply to fuel tankers.

"We did not include it in the arrangement because it is subject to security," he said.

"We shall devise other means of controlling overloaded fuel tankers."

He said there would be need for more mobile and highway weighbridges.

"The weighbridges will also undergo regular calibration to ensure accuracy.

It has been alleged that inaccurate weighbridges have been frustrating transporters since each weighbridge would give a differing weight.

UNRA is to manage sh948b of the sh1.083 trillion the Government allocated to the road sector in 2008/09 budget to improve the national road network.

The authority is carrying out rehabilitation works on major roads.

The call for more weighbridges is a contradiction to the position of some regional leaders.

Recently, the Rwandan President, Paul Kagame, called for a reduction of weighbridges saying they increase corruption and lead to business losses. He said if this was not done, it would discourage business and investment in the the region.