Karimojong flee collapsing OPM houses

Karimojong families that have been living in free houses built for them by the Office of the Prime Minister (OPM), have fled them fearing that they could collapse on them given the dangerous state they are in.
This follows an incident where a family of eight in Loputiput Village, Nadunget Sub-county in Moroto District, survived death narrowly when their OPM-built house collapsed while they were having supper.

Ms Mary Nake, the LC1 chairperson of Loputiput Village, on Monday explained that a section of the wall of the room where the family was having supper fell outside. She added that if the same had fallen inside, it would have injured or killed the family members.
Ms Nake said all the 20 houses built by the OPM through the intervention of the First Lady, Ms Janet Museveni, when she was still the minister for Karamoja Affairs, are in dangerous state with others collapsing while some have developed cracks.

“Thank God that most of these houses are falling down during day time. Otherwise, if it was at night when people are sleeping, many people would have lost their lives,” she said.
In 2013, a South African firm, Hydro-form through the OPM and the office of the First Lady, built 20 houses per village as a pilot project that targeted three villages to make the Karimojong live in decent modern houses.

The villages that benefited from the project include Loputiput, Nawonatau and Nakapeliment.
Twenty more houses were constructed in Lorengedwant Village in Lorengedwat Sub-county, Nakapiripirit District.
The locals said the houses were built using interlocking blocks without a firm foundation and rim beam, making them weak.

Ms Sabinah Lokwi, a mother, said it is unfortunate that government officials told them to destroy their locally built grass-thatched houses and yet it is now hard for them to get grass and building poles to build new houses for themselves.
Ms Lokwi appealed to concerned authorities to carry out a special audit of the houses to ascertain their quality.
Mr Peter Amodoi, who was assigned to supervise the construction of the houses, told Daily Monitor that each house cost government between Shs12m and Shs17m.

He acknowledged that the houses were built without a firm foundation and rim beam, adding that it was a learning process.
Mr John Baptist Lokii, the Member of Parliament for Matheniko County where the houses were built, accused the team assigned to supervise the work of embezzling money.
Several attempts to speak to the minister for Karamoja Affairs, Mr John Byabagambi, were futile as he could not pick up our repeated calls.

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