Disagreements stall Lira Cathedral repairs

Lira. As Lira Diocese gears up for golden jubilee celebrations scheduled for November this year, refurbishment of Lira Cathedral, the place for hosting the celebrations has since stalled.
Daily Monitor has established that refurbishment of the cathedral may not be complete due to lack of funds and disagreements between the contractors hired to expand the cathedral and engineers.
It had earlier been planned that both the Cathedral and the Bishop’s residence be given a facelift ahead of the celebrations to mark 50 years of the diocese’s existence.

To give way for the construction works, all masses and prayer sessions were temporarily relocated from the cathedral to a makeshift shelter erected on the Diocesan Ordination Grounds.
When the refurbishment works at the Cathedral started eight months ago, it hardly lasted a month before it stalled.
Since the suspension of the works, many Christians have been left in suspense, with some claiming the money might have been swindled.
Bishop Joseph Franzelli of Lira Diocese, however, dismisses the allegations, defending that work stalled due to misunderstandings and conflict of interest between the contractor and a team of consultant engineers who were to supervise the project.

Bishop speaks out
In a public statement he issued over the diocese’s radio (Radio Waa), Bishop Franzelli said the project money was not “eaten” but the contractor and the engineers failed to agree on certain things.
“Work started but after a while, we were faced with two big challenges; one, we had a big problem with the contractor whose details I do not wish to talk about but he withdrew and abandoned work. Secondly, there was confusion among the team of professional engineers and consultants who were monitoring the project,” he said.

Even though he declined to explain the fallout between the contractor and the engineers, a priest, also a member of the organising committee of the celebrations who declined to be named because of the sensitivity of the matter, said the contractor and the consultant engineers failed to agree on whether the work can go on without breaking down the walls of the cathedral.
“The contractor was insisting that the walls be demolished to allow expansion while the engineers disagreed with him arguing that the structural expansion would be implemented without bringing the walls down. They disagreed until the contractor withdrew,” he said.
The contractor accordingly reasoned that expanding the church without demolishing the walls could lead to the collapse of the main building.

Calls for calm
Although he called for calm among the Christians, Bishop Franzelli asserted that the construction project would not be ready by November when the jubilee is be celebrated.
“Let nobody say the Bishop or engineers have eaten the money. I want to make this very clear that all the money collected for the renovation is safe on the Diocese’s bank account,” he added.
He said a new team of consultant engineers led by Moses Okwel have been brought on board and a consultation meeting to decide on the new contractor will be held on Saturday before work resumes immediately. Currently, the Cathedral lies idle.

Last year in November, President Museveni officiated at the grand fundraising ceremony for the renovation and expansion of the Cathedral where he pledged Shs200m.
Although he promised to return in person for the celebration in November, the President’s promise of offering Uganda People’s Defence Forces engineers to help in the construction process has not yet materialised, with only two months to the celebrations.
More than Shs1 billion was budgeted to renovate and expand the Cathedral as well as renovate the Bishop’s Residence (diocesan administration block).
The refurbishment will also see the Cathedral’s sitting capacity doubled, from 500 to 1,000 people.

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