The classroom floor on Lukaya Government Seed School which already damaged barely three months after commissioning
Three newly constructed seed schools in Greater Masaka have cracks barely three months after they were opened. The schools are Bukakata Seed school in Masaka district, Mbirizi seed school in Lwengo district, and Lukaya seed school in Kalungu district.
They were each constructed at 2.125 Billion Shillings under the World Bank-funded Inter-Government Fiscal Transfer-UgIFT program.
The structures have already presented with visible cracks on the walls and floors.
Joyce Moriku Kaducu, the State Minister for Education and Sports in charge of Primary Education says they have taken note of the irregularities which she attributes to poor workmanship by the contractor.
While commissioning Lukaya Seed Secondary school in Kalungu, Moriku indicated that the shoddy works at the facilities were an eye-opener for the Ministry and the technical teams, to conduct a thorough evaluation on similar other projects that are being commissioned in different parts of the country.
She instructed the Kalungu District Chief Administrative Officer to halt payment of the balance to the contractor until an assessment is done and the defects corrected. She however blames the local District Civil Engineers for not raising a red flag against the shoddy work in the schools and failing to call the contractors to order when the projects were still under construction stages.
Anifa Kawoowa Bangirana, the State Minister for Health in Charge of General Duties who commissioned Mbirizi Seed School in Lwengo district on Wednesday, says that she is disappointed by the quality of work by the contractor.
“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,” she said.
Available contract records indicate that the three schools were constructed by MMARCKS Investments Limited, whose owners did not attend the commissioning of any of the projects.
Charles Tamale, the Lukaya Town Council Chairperson argues that problems stem from the lack of coordination between the local project beneficiaries and the government that procured the projects.
He argues that since the contract was allocated by the Ministry, it was difficult for the local leaders to monitor the project works, which gave the contractors the opportunity to remain reluctant to listen to any local concerns hence the poor delivery of works.
-URN
