KCCA, legislator clash over school repairs

KAMPALA. Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA) and the Rubaga North Member of Parliament, Mr Moses Kasibante, are locked in a wrangle involving two public primary schools where the legislator claims KCCA spent colossal sum of tax payers’ money on ghost infrastructure repairs .
The affected schools, Kasubi Family Primary and Namungoona-Kigobe Primary School, are located in Mr Kasibante’s constituency.

He said KCCA officials falsely claimed in their 2017/18 budget performance charter to the ministry of Finance that Shs300m had been sent on repairing structures in the two schools.
“When I got this information from the ministry of Finance budget framework, I went to the school to find out the said repairs and I found none,” Mr Kasibante during an interview on Wednesday.

But in an interview with Daily Monitor, the KCCA director for education, Ms Juliet Namuddu Nambi, denied knowledge of how the said accountability got into the budget performance framework report.
“When we appeared before the parliamentary committee, we were chased away without being given a chance to explain. The MPs don’t have our side of the story, but all I can tell you is that, we have crosschecked everywhere and didn’t find what the parliamentarians were claiming,” Ms Namuddu said.
“Court stopped us from repairing one of those schools [Kasubi Family Primary]. We had a budget of Shs130m and we diverted it to an emergence at East Kololo Primary School which had been de-roofed. What we have only done at Kasubi is to provide tents for pupils to continue with studies,” Ms Namuddu said.

She added that KCCA had made progress in securing land housing Kasubi Family School, which has an enrolment of 700 pupils. In May 2016, some of the school’s classrooms were demolished by a private developer who claims ownership of the land.
The school, which sits on Block 203, Plot 5063 in Kasubi, is alleged to have been sold at Shs800m to Kasubi Market Vendors Association, according to a purchase agreement seen by Daily Monitor.
“Court has sent us into a mediation process and we are involving the Buganda Land Board, who are said to be the landlords. We want to sort out those people who are claiming rights over the school land and immediately secure a lease,” Ms Namuddu said.

Mr Kasibante said the budget performance report indicates huge sums of money was utilised to undertake landscaping at Namungoona -Kigobe Primary School.
“However, the landscaping excluded a field. Much of the land at that school has been grabbed by powerful people. I also know of money that went to secure a lease for Kigobe,” he said.
However, Ms Namuddu said KCCA has undertaken surveying of Namungoona- Kigobe Primary School land which is also subject to payment of Shs73m to secure a lease. KCCA managed schools have suffered gross encroachment on their land with about 57 lacking land titles out of the entire 79 schools.

But Ms Namuddu said there is a window of hope. She added that Kitebi Primary School and Busega Community School have received lease offers and land titles will be issued soon.
A total of Shs277m has already gone into the coffers of BLB . Three other schools, including Katwe Primary School, Nakivubo Blue Primary School and Kitante Primary School have received pepper corn lease offers from the Uganda Land Commission and their leases will be secured soon.

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