ADJUMANI, UGANDA: The Minister of state for lands housing, and urban development Kania Mario Obiga has declined to perform the groundbreaking task of construction of multi-billion projects under the Uganda Support for Municipality Infrastructure development [USMID] in Adjumani district.
The minister who was in Adjumani district on August 10, 2022, refused to launch the construction of a mega market structure worth shs2.2bn and a resource center whose contract value is shs1.5bn in Kiraba parish Ukusijoni sub county.
Hon Kania Mario who was accompanied to the site by technical officers from the ministry and Adjumani district leaders was shocked when he was told in a spell of about three months only three trips of stone aggregates and two trips of sand were ferried to the market site
‘’I don’t know what criteria or formulae was used to evaluate the project to arrive at this contractor as the best bidder any way if he cannot improve we shall cancel his contract and battle it in court”.
The managing director of Bresun [U]ltd Silver told the minister he has been mobilizing man power and materials and asked the minister to give them a chance to prove that the company is up to the task.
When the minister was led to the second site which is the construction of community center, he became furious and demanded to know why the managing director Weko Engineering Consult Ltd Obitre William was delaying work at the site.
‘’This is even worse than where we were, the contractor has not fulfilled the requirements of the contract. I also find the district leaders too lenient otherwise the contract should have been terminated because of non-compliance”.
He said he suspects the contractors succeeded through dubious means, but they should have worked hard to clear the tell-tale traces in order to erase suspicion
The minister angrily said, “I cannot come and launch grass I want the district to immediately draft and sign a memorandum of understanding[MOU]with the contractor for expediting the construction work as directed in the contract’’.
He directed the district leaders and technical officers to keenly monitor and supervise the work progress so that the contractor will be dealt with swiftly if he is not compliant.
The managing director Weko Engineering Consult Ltd. Obitre William went on bended knees explaining that the delay was caused due to ill health of his partner Dr. Bua a signatory to the bank account, who has suffered a major stroke that kept him bedridden for one year and asked for clemency.
The district engineer Afayo Nick said contractor, Weko Engineering Consult Ltd appeared on site and mobilized human resources but progress was slow and has served him with two warning letters and that he is left with a notice for showing him the exit.
The Project coordinator USMID who represented the permanent secretary ministry of Land, housing and urban development said his team have seen and heard about the issues in Ukusijoni and would work tirelessly in ensuring the situation is reversed.
The contracts for the constructions of a market and community resource center in Kiraba parish were signed on April 27, May 2022, but work progress over the period has been discouragingly very slow.
Three months into the contract, the overall progress at the market site is 10%while that at the community resource center is 5% which is way below the expected work progress since both projects are expected to be completed within nine [9]calendar months according to a report from the engineering department.
The district could get a raw deal from USMID if trend of irregular actions are not reversed because records available indicates that out of the allocations’ of shs 21bn,for 5 years the district has received a miserable disbursement of shs 2bn.
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