Mukono school fire: Loopholes revealed

Police yesterday continued to find clues to the mysterious fire that gutted the girls’ dormitory at Salama School for the Blind, killing 11 pupils.
Two of the six children who were admitted have been discharged from Kiruddu Referral Hospital in Kampala. 
The burnt dormitory accommodated 27 pupils.
However, a number of people, including security and the school authorities, have identified lapses that could have exposed the government school with 75 learners to the highly-suspected attack.
Mr Francis Kinubi, the school head teacher, said at the time of the incident, the school had no guard.

“To be honest to you, the school had no guard, the one whom we had had just been fired because he was not performing his work properly and was found sleeping at night,” Mr Kinubi told journalists.
Mr Kinubi said the guard was not trained and only had a stick as his weapon to guard the school.
He added that a number of casual workers at the school farm had been suspended over failure to perform their duties.
Mr Kinubi, however, said the labourers went away satisfied as they were paid all their wages.

The head teacher said they had plans to instal CCTV cameras and smoke detectors but they are financially constrained.
“This incident has awoken us, the government should support its school to buy these equipment for the safety of the vulnerable children,” he said.
Mr Peter Bakaluba Mukasa, the Mukono District chairman, also pointed at lack of a proper fencing for the school, which was manipulated to access the school.
“The school gate is always open and the fencing is not good so this exposed the school to bad cats,” Mr Bakaluba who had pitched camp at the school, noted.
An investigator at the scene, who preferred not to be named, noted that the school’s lack of CCTV cameras and smoke detectors exposed it to the act.
Ms Rebecca Nalongo, the school neighbour, said she was unware of grudges or wrangles between the school and other people, adding that the head teacher enjoys cordial relationships with all residents.

“But I think the location of the school in the middle of a forest, eucalyptus trees and tea plantations could have made it easy for the attackers to carry out their bad acts and run away because they knew no one would see them,” Ms Nalongo noted.
The school is located in a solitary area about 4 kilometres from Kisoga Town, where the police CCTV cameras are located.
Mr Patrick Onyango, the deputy Police spokesperson, also pointed at failure by the school to comply with the Ministry of Education guidelines for dormitories, noting that the triple decker beds coupled with lack of a safe escape route could have led to the death of a big number of pupils.

Although Ms Diana Mukebezi, the matron, said she tried to evacuate the pupils from the dormitory, Mr Onyango said the limited space between the beds made it hard for her to quickly evacuate the blind children, leading loss of lives due to suffocation.
Ms Fatuma Ndisaba, the Mukono Resident District Commissioner, also pointed at the solitary nature of the school without immediate neighbours, coupled with many people at the school being visually-impaired as they would not identify the culprits.