District officials fight over launch of new buildings
One of the new buildings at Ahmed Sseguya Memorial Technical Institute. PHOTO BY FRED MUZAALE
Kayunga District leaders have rejected plans by the Ministry of Education and Sports to commission the newly constructed Ahmed Seguya Technical Institute, saying the work is incomplete.
According to the RDC, Ms Rose Birungi, and the district chairperson, Mr Tom Sserwanga, some of the buildings in the structural design had not been constructed. Also, some workshop equipment and a computer server had not been installed, Mr Sserwanga said.
“We shall not allow the minister to commission these buildings until all the structures are constructed and the server is installed,” Ms Birungi said on Wednesday during a handover of the structures by the contractor to the management of the institute.
She added: “The commissioning will take place when we are certain that there is value for money for the taxpayers.”
After the handover, the project engineer, Mr Arjun Hirani, was briefly detained on the orders of the RDC on accusations that the construction company had not provided a land title to the management for the land on which an electricity line to the facility was constructed.
The bickering has seen the structures remain idle since last year as about 800 students at the institute continue studying from poor structures.
The project contractor, Ambitious Construction Co. Ltd, handed over the newly constructed structures to the ministry since they were incurring “unbudgeted for costs” in form of providing security and maintaining staff at the construction site.
The new structure cost Shs6b and is located in Kamuli village, Kangulumira Sub-county. It was constructed using a loan from Kuwait Fund in memory of Ahmed Seguya, who was the first Bush War NRA commander.
However, the ministry of project engineer, Mr Louis Drici, said some of the structures in the structural design had been removed due to limited funds.
“We had budgeted that construction would cost about $3.5 million but the cost went up to $8 million, forcing us to remove some structures. But the facilities constructed can accommodate all the learners here,” Mr Drici said.
