Housing for police, prisons falls apart

From a bird’s eye view, Nsambya Police Barracks, the largest in the country, looks like a sprawling brown informal settlement – the kind in urban planning associated with poor neighbourhoods.

Inside, it teems with life. It has a church and a mosque. A huge population, estimated at more than 15,000. There is a clinic for police officers, their families and neighbours. 

An irregularly maintained dirt road cuts from the eastern gate, where the barracks administrative offices are located, connecting with three bends to the western gate, touching on Ggaba road.

A branch links to the canine unit, called the Dog Section. Between the main gates of the barracks, characterised by a maze of paths and sprouting sugarcanes and gardens, is the biggest accommodation for Uganda Police Force personnel and its problems that epitomise a national housing crisis.  

Originally, each of the well-spaced double pen buildings laid out in rows was for an officer and their families. The few storeyed houses were for senior officers, or commanders. Squat (flush) toilets in between were to be, and indeed, shared. 

Things fall apart

As police numbers increased, the Force leadership decided each of the two rooms in every building should host two families; one in the inner room, another in the outer one. Both would share the attached kitchen and bathroom. 

For others, the resistance was to families sharing unipots partitioned inside with curtains. 

This presented a risk because with the officers working night shifts too, the conduct of their neighbours and spouses or teenage children left behind could not be guaranteed, sparking suspicion and bad blood.

Complaints about lost privacy and congestion fell on deaf ears, with commanders asking occupants to decide between complying with house-sharing order and leave. 

The easier option, according to one officer who has lived at Nsambya barracks for a decade, was to stay put, especially when senior officials in successive recruitment cohorts were floating without official accommodation.   

In addition, staying in a police accommodation, despite the hamstrings, is rent-free and without water, electricity and other utility bills.

The Force had already lifted its feet off the brakes on numbers in order to beat rising crime and attempt conformity with United Nations-recommended police to population ratio, and ended up drafting even more men and women than its operational capacity could handle. 

As more officers fanned out of Kabalya Police Training School in Masindi District, they had nowhere to sleep whichever station they were deployed to across the country.

And officers-in-charge of stations became creative, freeing up land between buildings and unipots at barracks for new arrivals to install improvised accommodation. 

The construction was simple: open holes, fix poles and nail iron sheets onto them to shape a rectangular structure.

Then, the builders would dig back and compact soil around the makeshift structure to prevent inflow of run-off water. Inside, they poured cement paste to create a surfaced floor, to alternately serve as living and bed room. 

Corruption allegations

There were allegations, which remained unproven, that some of the new officers paid brokers in order to be allocated space to erect the temporary structures. 

These filled the barracks so quickly that older residents had no foreground for view, congestion worsened, rivalry over toilets worsened and hygiene dropped. 

Besides sanitation problems, playground for children was swallowed by shining mabaati structures, which are so close to each other that one can hear voices in the neighbouring one. 

Blocked drainage channels have meant more backflows of storm water, pushing plastics, human waste and garbage back onto what is left of compounds between conflicted neighbours, adding to unsightly disused cars and fly-filled garbage piles in uncollected skips.

It is this plight that has enraged Maj Gen (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire, who as the Internal Affairs minister, is the political overseer of the Uganda Police Force, prompting his abrasive demand for money to fix the teething accommodation problem for police and prisons countrywide. 

“The state of accommodation of the police force is a disgrace to say the least,” Maj Gen Otafiire said. 

“In fact, I am surprised we still have police officers. People are living in places I don’t want to mention…Sometimes I avoid going to the barracks because what will I say?” he added.

Maj Gen Otafiire has publicly attacked Finance ministry technocrats, accusing them before President Museveni, who is the commander-in-chief of armed forces, of failing to release funds to bankroll housing construction for the civilian armed servicemen and women.

“Let me take this opportunity to accuse the Ministry of Finance that if it wasn’t for their bureaucratic methods of handling things, we would have gone far. The housing situation for these three institutions is pathetic,” Maj Gen Otafiire told President Museveni at the pass out of police and immigration officers at the Police Training School, Kabalye, in Masindi District last month.

“So, Your Excellency, I would like you to whip the officers in the Ministry of Finance to finish the PPP [public private partnership project] thing. You know when I talk, they think I am small and I am a trouble maker. But I will not keep quiet,” he added.

The mega housing projects, initiated under former Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura, are an attempt by the government to solve a crisis that has dogged the three institutions for decades.

But the Shs4.2 trillion project has been hit by allegations of infighting, suspected influence peddling to favour certain private investors and failure to follow procurement procedures, leaving the arrangements to hang in the balance.

Although Maj Gen Otafiire has continued to push for the fast-tracking of the project and threatened to sack any dilly-dallying officials, he declined to give reasons why the procurement process has been delayed, saying it is an internal issue.

More hurdles

This newspaper understands that the latest roadblock is from the office of the Solicitor General, the top technocrat in the Attorney General’s chambers and whose signature is required for clearance of government commitment in PPP. He is reported to have withheld a no-objection verdict on the procurement of a Spanish private investor without subjecting the entire project to competitive bidding.

A Spanish company, Edicomsa International, had been handpicked by the Ministry of Internal Affairs to build 69,000 housing units for the police, prisons and immigration institutions under PPP arrangement.

Sources in the Ministry of Internal Affairs said the Solicitor General directed that a competitive bidding be carried out to enable the government to get the best private partner.

However, the spokesperson of the Ministry of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Mr Simon Peter Jamba, couldn’t confirm the reported Solicitor General’s directives, saying he needed to get a copy of the letter first.

Previous attempts to build houses for the three institutions - police, prisons and immigrations staff - have failed due to similar challenges.

In 2010, the police attempted to build 7,300 housing units for their officers. Three consortiums; Akright Properties, Ahadi Consortium and Fangda International Company Limited, a Chinese firm, were chosen.

The projects didn’t take off because many investors were worried that there was no law to guarantee repayment of their investments.

In 2015, the government pushed the enactment of the PPP law that streamlined the relationship between private investors and the government in joint ventures.

The PPP arrangement was to enable the government, which is short on funds, to reach an understanding with a private investor to erect the houses and be repaid in future on agreed terms. 

Another hurdle in the first police PPP project was land ownership. 

Part of the chunk of land at Nsambya Police Barracks that police wanted to give to the investors to develop was owned by the Catholic Church. 

The investors wanted to build apartments and then relocate police to another area. 

The Catholic Church blocked any other developments on the land, except those of the police.

Although the first PPP project under the police didn’t materialise, the Ministry of Internal Affairs continued to pursue alternative financing to solve accommodation challenges of the three institutions.

In the latest PPP proposal, police, prisons and immigrations want to construct 69,000 housing units at an estimated cost of Shs4.2 trillion.

The lion’s share, 54,000 housing units, is to be for the police followed by prisons with around 10,000 units and the rest for immigration officers.

According to an Internal Affairs ministry source, who preferred anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter, the delay was due to pulling of ropes between the three institutions, the Finance and the Internal Affairs ministries on how accommodation projects should be executed.

“Each institution under the Ministry of Internal Affairs wanted to procure a private investor of their own to fund the construction of the houses for their staff independently. Bringing all the government institutions to work together to have a joint project has been the biggest problem,” the source said.

After each institution kick-started the procurement process of private funders for their accommodation projects, the Finance ministry stepped in with brakes, demanding a joint search for PPP partner.

In August 2022, the Internal Affairs ministry had invited firms to express interest in the financing, designing and building 53,000 police housing units.

The Director of Police Logistics and Engineering, Mr Richard Edyegu, later said they had got the funders and they were progressing well.

The prisons service had also got a Spanish company to construct accommodation for them.

However, the Finance ministry wrote to the Internal Affairs ministry leadership, declining the separate institutional arrangements.

The Finance ministry insisted that the projects should be consolidated and delivered as one product, which meets the National Development Plan framework and are relevant to the ruling government manifesto.

One senior Internal Affairs ministry official said the halt was intended to avoid scattering of resources and getting low value from each project carried out by each institution.

Another source said the decision didn’t go well with the leadership of the three institutions and each had vested interests to hire a PPP investor.

Another attempt

In February this year, Internal Affairs pushed for a private investor, Edicomsa International, a Spanish company, which the prisons had earlier contacted to build for them houses, to undertake the PPP housing project for all the three institutions.

However, the Finance ministry again red-flagged the plan that Edicomsa International had proposed on grounds that it had not provided full details about the amount they spend on the project, where they would construct the houses and how they would be repaid.

Bureaucrats further directed for the establishment of a technical committee as per the requirement for the procurement processes.

The committee is supposed to establish ownership of the land on which the houses would be built, designs of the houses and how the repayment would be structured.

During the 27th Police Council sitting at police headquarters last month, Maj Gen Otafiire accused the committee of taking so long to carry out the verifications and resolving the queries raised by the Finance ministry.

He gave police’s undersecretary, Mr Aggrey Wunyi, and his colleagues on the committee, 90 days to finalise with the accommodation project or face the axe.

A source said the Solicitor General’s office also queried how the Spanish company was procured.

“The Solicitor General advised that the procurement process should follow the Public Procurement and Disposal of Public Assets Act (PPDA) standards to enable competitive bidding,” a source said.

This knocked out the first deal for the Spanish company, which now has to go into open bidding and competition with other investors that might show interest.

Finance speaks out

Finance ministry spokesperson, Mr Jim Mugunga, in response to our inquiries about the accommodation project delays, said they are mindful of the concerns the agencies are raising and will fast-track them.

“My minister [of Finance] Matia Kasaija has also personally expressed concern about the dire housing issues of the three agencies. The Ministry and PPPU (Public Private Procurement Unit) have raised consistently, and timely availed personnel, to support the Ministry of Internal Affairs,” he said.

He added: “It is a positive sign and all [government agencies] are on board to ensure they expedite the process and study the most suitable methodology to fast-track the procurement in accordance with the law.

Seeking solution

Maj Gen (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire, the Internal Affairs minister, has publicly attacked Finance ministry technocrats, accusing them before President Museveni, who is the commander-in-chief of armed forces, of failing to release funds to bankroll housing construction for the civilian armed servicemen and women.

The mega housing projects, initiated under former Inspector General of Police Kale Kayihura, are an attempt by the government to solve a crisis that has dogged the three institutions for decades.

But the Shs4.2 trillion project has been hit by allegations of infighting, suspected influence peddling to favour certain private investors and failure to follow procurement procedures, leaving the arrangements to hang in the balance.

Although Maj Gen Otafiire has continued to push for the fast-tracking of the project and threatened to sack any dilly-dallying officials, he declined to give reasons why the procurement process has been delayed, saying it is an internal issue.