Three seed schools in Greater Masaka have developed cracks barely three months after they were officially commissioned.
The schools are Bukakata seed school in Masaka district, Mbirizi seed school in Lwengo district, and Lukaya seed school in Kalungu district, each costing Ugx 2.15 billion under the World Bank-funded Inter-Government Fiscal Transfer (UgIFT) program.
Wide cracks are already visible on the walls and floors of these structures. Joyce Moriku Kaducu, the state minister for Primary Education says they have noticed the irregularities which she attributes to poor workmanship by the contractor.
While commissioning Lukaya seed secondary school in Kalungu, Kaducu indicated that the faulty works at the facilities were an eye-opener to the ministry and the technical teams to always conduct a thorough evaluation on similar other projects that are being commissioned in different parts of the country.
She then ordered the Kalungu district chief administrative officer to halt payment of the balance to the contractor until they do an assessment and correct the faults.
She however blames the local district civil engineers for not raising a red flag against the shoddy works and failing to call the contractors to order when the projects were still under construction stages.
“We still have their retention money – Shs 200m. We still have it and we shall not release that money until they come and do these [defects] because this money is government money and [government] has put this investment here for a lifetime. Do they think we shall be getting money every time to come and put investments? So we want it properly done, that is why I’m making noise. I want quality work, [we] don’t deserve this work, no value for money. We have commissioned but I want quality work,” said Kaducu.
“The picture I got on the ground made me cast doubt in the competence of the contractor who was hired to do work at the school. I’m not certain whether these buildings will stand for even a year. I’m going to report back to the relevant authorities,” said Anifa Kawooya Bangirana, the state minister for Health in charge of General Duties who commissioned Mbirizi seed school in Lwengo district
According to the available contract records, the three schools were constructed by MMARCKS investments limited, whose owners did not attend the commissioning of any of the projects..
Charles Tamale, Lukaya Town Council chairperson attributes these problems to the lack of coordination between the local project beneficiaries and the government that procured the projects.
According to Tamale, it was difficult for the local leaders to monitor the project works, since the contract was allocated by the ministry. This gave the contractors an opportunity to remain reluctant to listen to any local concerns hence the poor delivery of works.
“We appreciate having a school here, the only government school. As for government projects we have seen many where they come and implement in an area without the involvement of the locals. So far the work done is about 70% though there are some defects,“ said Tamale..
“They should involve the local people because they do the project for the local people but we find ourselves monitoring what we weren’t involved in at the beginning. They should customize projects to the areas to see what is fitting well with the areas…they should involve locals so that we get what we want and befits our people,” he added.
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