The Independent Uganda: You get the Truth we Pay the Price
Mbale Uganda | THE INDEPENDENT | Mbale City Council officials are on the spot over three funded projects that do not exist on the ground, and over costing prices of buildings.
Over the weekend, the State Minister of Economic Monitoring Peter Ogwang inspected some of the projects in Mbale city, and discovered that some of the projects that the city had indicated to have been worked on in the previous financial years never existed.
The minister also discovered that the projects that were worked on within the city were overpriced citing classroom blocks and toilets which were either constructed or renovated at high cost compared to those of other districts where he moved and had worked on similar projects.
At Mayor Mbale Primary School, the minister discovered that the two, three classroom blocks that the officials indicated to have constructed at 115 million shillings in 2018/2019 and the other at 122 million shillings in 2019 /2020, were in fact just one, one-room block.
Another is the construction and renovation of water borne toilets at North Road Primary School. In the financial year 2018/2019, the city authorities claimed in their report that they renovated a 5 stanza toilet at the primary school and in the financial year 2019/2020, constructed a 7 stanza water borne toilet in the same school using 56 million shillings on the two projects. But only one toilet was visible on ground.
The other ghost project is the Namanda-Spipriya road where Road Fund disbursed 102 Million shillings to rehabilitate the road in the previous financial year, but when the minister visited the road, there were no works that had been done on the road. The residents in the area also denied having seen any works ever going on on the ground.
Some of the projects that the minister cited as having been exaggerated in prices include Mayor Mbale Primary School, where a three classroom block cost 122 million shillings while a two classroom block at Busamaga Primary School was constructed at 96 million shillings in the financial year 2020/2021.
Ogwang ordered for investigations in all the projects and tasked officials in the engineering department in the city to coordinate with the team of investigators to provide documents for investigations.
Johnson Gimoyi, Mbale City Council engineer told the minister during inspection that some of the projects that are nonexistent like a three classroom block at Mayor Primary School and the 5 stanza water borne toilet at North Road Primary School, but reflected in the report was an error during the typing of the report.
David Kyansanku, the Mbale City Clerk said that the minister’s visit in the city will help them to improve and become better in service delivery. He said that they will be reviewing themselves especially in the budgeting and the costing of prices for projects.
The Mayor Kasim Namugali tasked the city leaders to work hard and put things right so that when the minister returns to the city, he finds when things have changed.
George Mpungu, the Acting Commissioner of Local Government and Anti-Corruption at CID headquarters who is leading the team of investigators on the minister’s entourage said that they are highly empowered to investigate the cases and that whoever will refuse to hand over documents for investigations will be arrested.
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