Egis Road Operations has pushed back strongly against allegations raised by Parliament over the management of the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway, dismissing claims surrounding the value and sophistication of the TollSys toll collection system as based on a fundamental misunderstanding.
Through its lawyers, S&L Advocates, the French road operations company has written to the Parliamentary Committee on Physical Infrastructure seeking to correct what it describes as misleading information presented to MPs concerning the TollSys system deployed on the expressway.
The response comes after the committee, chaired by Mwine Mpaka, raised questions over toll collection, revenue accountability, system performance and the management of the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway.
During an on-spot inspection at Kajjansi Toll Centre on August 11, MPs witnessed an incident in which a bus that should have attracted a Shs15,000 toll was allowed through after a Shs5,000 electronic toll card meant for light vehicles was manually used to open the barrier.
The incident triggered concerns about the possibility of revenue leakage and whether the toll collection system was sufficiently automated and secure.
The committee’s wider inquiry has also placed Egis Road Operations, Pinnacle Security Limited and Abubakar Technical Services under scrutiny, with questions being raised about their respective roles in the management and operation of the expressway.
However, in its August 14 response, S&L Advocates, acting for Egis, took particular exception to an allegation concerning the cost of the TollSys system.
The lawyers said the committee had apparently relied on an invoice or information obtained from a website showing a price of EUR6,044 and interpreted it as the value of the software.
“We are instructed to specifically, address the claim (based on an invoice that the Committee obtained on the website) that the TollSys system is comparable to a ‘Point of Sale’ (POS) software used in supermarkets and that its value amounts to only EUR 6,044,” the lawyers wrote. “As explained below, that figure relates to an internet domain name listing and not to any toll collection software system.”
Domain Name Mix-Up
According to Egis, the EUR6,044 figure does not represent the price of the TollSys software, nor does it reflect the cost of installing or operating the system on the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway.
S&L Advocates explained that the figure was the asking price for the internet domain name “tollsys.com” listed on GoDaddy, a marketplace for internet domain names.
“A domain name is merely a web address (similar to a phone number for the internet) and has no connection whatsoever to the proprietary toll collection software system,” the lawyers stated.
They added that “EUR 6,044 does not, in any way, reflect the value or cost of operating a system software solution like TollSys. The two things are entirely unrelated.”
Instead, Egis says the actual cost associated with the purchase, installation, operation, updates and intellectual property rights of the TollSys system, together with the necessary hardware and accessories, was Shs5.832 billion over the five-year period of the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway operations and maintenance contract.
“The true value or cost of purchase, installation, operation and update and related intellectual property rights of the TollSys System together with system hardware and accessories needed was UGX 5,832,859,326 for the five (5) year period of the KEE O&M Contract,” the lawyers stated.
The company also clarified that the domain name “tollsys.com” is not owned by TollSys SAS or Egis. According to the response, TollSys SAS operates through “tollsys.fr”, as reflected in its official corporate documentation.
Egis Says TollSys Is Not A Supermarket POS
Egis also rejected comparisons between its toll collection platform and ordinary point-of-sale systems used in supermarkets.
The company said TollSys SAS is a properly incorporated French software development company headquartered in Meylan, France, with a registered share capital of EUR500,000.
The lawyers described TollSys SAS as a specialist developer and publisher of motorway toll collection software solutions, employing software engineers and technical personnel while also engaging specialist contractors for project delivery.
They further described TollSys as the company’s core intellectual property asset, saying it had been developed over several years through sustained investment in research and development.
According to the response, TollSys SAS generated approximately EUR1.49 million in revenue from the sale and maintenance of its software solutions in 2023 and about EUR1.47 million in 2024.
The company said these figures, contained in its financial records, demonstrate the commercial value of the software.
It also said TollSys maintains salaried developers and project managers, supported by external specialists, with thousands of man-days dedicated annually to software development, maintenance and customer support. The “TollSys” name is also a registered trademark, according to the lawyers.
Deployed On Roads Outside Uganda
Egis further sought to counter the suggestion that TollSys is a basic or generic software package. S&L Advocates said the system is a bespoke toll collection solution deployed, selected or maintained in connection with major motorway concession and toll-road projects.
The lawyers cited projects in France, the Republic of Congo, Poland and Uganda as examples of places where TollSys solutions have been deployed or relied upon.
Among the projects named are the A63 motorway concession operated by Atlandes in France, the A88 motorway concession operated by Alicorne, the Société des autoroutes du Nord et de l’Est de la France, toll road operations in the Republic of Congo and a video-tolling back-office system in Poland. Uganda’s Kampala-Entebbe Expressway operations and maintenance project was also listed.
The company argued that such international references demonstrate that TollSys has been used in serious motorway and toll-road environments.
What TollSys Actually Does
Egis said the complexity of a toll collection platform makes it fundamentally different from a supermarket POS terminal.
According to the response, the TollSys platform handles real-time transaction processing across several toll lanes and plazas, multiple payment methods, vehicle classification and detection, revenue reconciliation and financial reporting.
It also integrates with independent traffic monitoring systems and manages back-office commercial operations, invoicing and customer management. The system must additionally meet data security, integrity and auditability requirements.
“A supermarket POS terminal processes individual retail transactions at a checkout counter; by contrast, a toll collection system is an integrated, project-specific infrastructure platform with operational, financial, security, and audit requirements across multiple toll lanes and back-office systems,” the lawyers stated.
The explanation comes against the backdrop of the committee’s discovery at Kajjansi, where MPs witnessed manual intervention in toll collection.
The incident raised questions about whether toll operators can bypass automated vehicle classification and payment procedures.
However, the Egis response focuses on defending the underlying software’s value and functionality rather than directly disputing the specific Kajjansi incident.
Egis Defends Its Performance
Beyond TollSys, the company also responded to allegations that it was “incompetent”, particularly concerning the failure to install the highway weigh-in-motion system and other operational issues. Egis “takes great exception” to the characterization, according to its lawyers.
On the highway weigh-in-motion system, the company said its decision not to install the system was based on an expert White Paper report which concluded that operating the technology on the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway would not be practical.
The company said the conclusion was subsequently supported by a verification exercise conducted by the operator with local support.
Egis then asked the employer in 2023 to consider using static weighbridge operations instead, but said formal approval from the employer was still pending.
The company therefore argues that the absence of the weigh-in-motion system should not automatically be interpreted as evidence of operational incompetence.
Shs191 Billion In Toll Revenue
Egis also pointed to the amount of money collected through tolling as evidence of its performance.
The company says approximately Shs191 billion in project toll revenue has so far been collected from the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway, exceeding revenue projections.
“Egis notes that approximately UGX 191 billion in project toll revenue has been collected from the KEE project thus far in excess of the revenue projections. This is not an indicator of ‘incompetence’ on the part of the O&M Operator,” S&L Advocates stated.
The claim is likely to attract attention from MPs investigating the tolling arrangement, particularly as the committee is seeking answers on revenue collection and possible leakages.
The committee’s concern is not simply how much money is collected but whether all motorists are correctly classified, charged and accounted for.
The Kajjansi incident demonstrated how a vehicle apparently classified for a higher toll category could pass using a lower-value card after manual intervention.
Egis Says It Trained Ugandans
The company also defended its contribution to skills transfer. According to the lawyers, Egis trained Ugandan personnel during its time as the lead operations and maintenance operator.
They said skills transfer to Ugandans was one of the key performance indicators under the KEE contract and that Egis considers that obligation fulfilled.
This comes as Parliament examines whether Uganda should change the model under which the expressway’s toll collection is managed.
A Ministry of Works and Transport engineer, Isaac Menya, recently told the committee that government could take direct control of toll collection provided an appropriate mechanism was created to ensure money was available for maintenance.
Menya cited Ethiopia’s state-managed toll roads and Kenya’s public-private partnership model as possible references. He cautioned that placing toll operations entirely within conventional government structures could introduce bureaucratic delays unless a dedicated entity with operational flexibility was created.
Payment Delays
Egis also sought to put its performance in the context of payment difficulties. The company said that at the beginning of the project it went for 10 consecutive months without receiving payment from UNRA for operations and maintenance services, despite the employer collecting revenue from the expressway.
“Despite significant payment delays by the Employer UNRA (at the start of the project Egis wasn’t paid for 10 months consecutively for O&M services despite the Employer collecting money from the operations). Egis continued to perform noting that it had a contractual obligation to do so,” the lawyers stated.
The statement therefore presents Egis as having continued to discharge its contractual obligations despite financial difficulties.
Egis Demands Correction Of The Record
In its conclusion, Egis asked Parliament’s Physical Infrastructure Committee to disregard the EUR6,044 figure as evidence of the value or cost of the toll collection system.
The company maintained that the figure came from an unrelated internet domain-name listing and had nothing to do with the TollSys system installed and operated on the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway.
“The EUR 6,044 figure referenced on ‘tollsys.com’ arises from a mistaken identification of an unrelated internet domain name listing. It is not connected to the TollSys toll collection system, TollSys SAS, or Egis,” the lawyers stated.
Egis asked the committee to correct the record, arguing that TollSys is proprietary software developed over several years through substantial research and development investment and deployed on major toll-road projects internationally.
It also thanked the committee for giving it an opportunity to provide its side of the story.
“Our client appreciates the Committee’s work and is grateful for the opportunity to provide context and clarity on this matter,” S&L Advocates concluded. The response now places Parliament’s inquiry at a critical juncture.
While Egis has mounted a detailed defence of the TollSys system and its performance, MPs are separately examining the broader architecture of toll collection on the Kampala-Entebbe Expressway—including manual intervention, toll exemptions, revenue accountability and the future role of private operators.
The central question for the committee will therefore be whether the problems witnessed at toll points reflect weaknesses in the software itself, weaknesses in its implementation and controls, or human and operational practices outside the technology.
For now, Egis insists that the software at the centre of the controversy is neither a cheap supermarket POS system nor a EUR6,044 purchase. It says the figure relied upon by the committee was simply the asking price for an unrelated internet domain, while the actual TollSys system and associated hardware, intellectual property, installation, operation and updates formed part of a Shs5.832 billion five-year arrangement.
The committee’s eventual findings will determine whether that explanation settles the software-value controversy—or opens a wider examination of how Uganda’s toll revenue is collected, protected and accounted for on one of the country’s most important road projects.
Author Profile
- Charles Gazza Kodili is a seasoned journalist with over 20 years of experience in the media industry. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communication. He’s currently the Chief Editor at the Investigator.
Charles can also be reached via; Tel: +256 774 108978
Email: [email protected]
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