The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Isingiro, Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | The Isingiro district engineer, Robert Musinguzi, and two others are in police custody over alleged shoddy works at Rwamurunga community secondary school in Rwamurunga sub county. The others are Pamela Besigye, the engineer of the World Bank-funded Development Response to Displacement Impacts Project-DRDIP, and Peter Turyamureeba, an engineer from Build Line Contract Company.
The trio was picked up on Wednesday during a joint district monitoring exercise involving Isingiro district LCV Chairperson Alone Turahi, Resident District Commissioner Adah Nasiima, and the District Internal Security Officer. The officers were monitoring the progress of the Mbaare Water Project, Shillings 600million Nyamuyanja Central Primary School, and the Shillings 2billlion Rwamurunga community secondary school.
While at Rwamurunga community secondary school, the team learned that the contractor had abandoned the site after receiving Shillings 1.6billion out of the Shillings 2 billion allocated for the project. Adah Nasiima, the Isingiro Resident District Commissioner says that in addition to the project being behind schedule, the buildings have developed big cracks on the walls and ceiling.
She said that they tasked the contractor of Nyamuyanja central school to explain himself in writing and cause a meeting with all stakeholders while they decided to arrest the engineers at Rwamurunga and Mbaare after failing to explain themselves on the quality of the works and their failure to deliver as expected.
Alone Turahi, the Isingiro LCV chairman said the Rwamurunga Community school project is 65% complete. He explained that during their previous monitoring exercise, they gave the contractor a five-month extension but he failed to deliver.
He says that his executive will now decide on whether or not to cancel his contract and hire another contractor to complete the works.
Turahi accused the district and project engineers of recommending the payment of the contractor to the tune of Shillings 1.6billion well aware of the shoddy work. Willy Muhumuza, the Mbaare Water Project engineer and water scheme chairperson Imeldah Tumuhimbise were arrested for extorting money from residents to connect them to the water scheme before it was handed over to the government.
The government contracted Build Line Contractor to construct the Shillings 2 billion project to supply water to Mbaare and Endiizi sub-counties. Nasiima explains that the dou has been soliciting between Shillings 500,000 and 1.3 million to connect residents to the scheme.
Turahi says the project that was supposed to be completed in eight months, has dragged on to a year. He alleges that the suspects had collected over Shillings 40 million from the residents.
Eliab Mucunguzi, one of the affected residents says that he was asked to pay Shillings 350000 for a connection to the water scheme. Francis Liga, the Isingiro police commander confirmed the arrest of the engineers, saying they have already recorded statements from the suspects.
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