Gorreth Namugga, Vice Chairperson PAC
Legislators have expressed concern over the delayed completion of construction projects by the National Enterprise Corporation (NEC) Construction Works and Engineering Limited, also known as the Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) Engineering brigade.
The MPs expressed their concerns during an interface with officials from Jinja Regional Referral Hospital, who had appeared before Parliament’s Public Accounts Committee (PAC) to respond to queries raised in the December 2024 Auditor General’s report.
“Across board, we have so many projects that are pending because the UPDF is overloaded. We are here as an accountability committee to help Government to really find out whether really the policy will work because the whole essence is to have timely provision of services. Now, we are going to use Jinja Hospital as a case study for efficiency and effectiveness of the UPDF in regard to execution of these services because they are given 100% but even then, they have failed to execute and deliver in time,” remarked Gorreth Namugga, Vice Chairperson PAC.
This was after the Auditor General, Edward Akol faulted officials of Jinja Hospital for the delayed construction of Wall Fence and motorised borehole after full payment of Shs359,917,373 was made to UPDF Engineering Brigade, but the works had not yet commenced by the time of audit in August 2024.
“Delayed construction of the wall fence continued to put the security of the hospital at risk since the area to be fenced off is located on a contested piece of land. Delayed construction of the motorised borehole continued to expose the hospital to increasing water bills with arrears amounting toUGX.3,799,518,671as at 30th June 2024,” noted Akol.
Dr. Alfred Yayi, Director, Jinja Referral Hospital acknowledged that audit findings noting that despite transferring all the funds, the works hadn’t commenced by the time of the audit, but have since been completed by the UPDF.
He explained, “Once we sign a Memorandum of Understanding with them, we pay 100% of the project funds and then UPDF comes on ground. So, by the time of the audit, we had transferred the funds fully, but the works hadn’t been concluded, actually, UPDF was yet to come and take over the site. But they did come and they completed the works.”
However, Namugga noted that although the works were later completed, but Jinja Hospital isn’t the only institution that has reported delayed execution of projects by the UPDF noting, “A budget is operationalised in the course of the financial year, you were given money to execute this activity within the financial year if the UPDF didn’t execute on time, we want to find out, what was the problem?”
