Officials from the State House Anti-corruption Unit have thrown two tertiary institutions of Makerere University out of classroom blocks belonging to Spire Road Primary School, in the Southern Division of Jinja city.
The eviction of the two institutions followed a joint inspection exercise of Spire Road school premises by a team of officers from the state house anti-corruption unit, ISO and police, who discovered that most of the classroom blocks were housing tertiary institutions at the expense of the learners.
Administrators of the two institutions failed to present any memorandum of understanding or documents to prove their tenancy in the school premises.
The Jinja city education officer, Amiina Mutesi, who is currently detained at Nalufenya police station over illegal sale of both Spire road and Lake site school land, is further accused of soliciting and pocketing 72 Million Shillings rental fees from Makerere university since 2018, which has never been never accounted for.
She is also accused of soliciting an unspecified amount of money from Team university, but she denies having prior knowledge of how the same institution acquired study space in a government-owned primary school.
Prior to the ongoing inquiries, Mutesi claimed in a communication to the members of the school’s board of governors that she had constructed the Spire road school’s gate at a cost of 72 million Shillings, remitted to the school in the last financial year.
One of the primary school administrators who spoke on condition of anonymity says that the school has a total of 660 pupils housed in two classroom blocks, hosting both the administration and learning space, whereas, the remaining four blocks are shared amongst the two university institutions.
“We operate a special unit for the sight-impaired pupils, early child learning unit, and the general primary school, which require standard space to foster a good learning environment for the learners, but due to the current scramble for classroom blocks with the university institutions, the space is limited,” she says.
Another teacher disclosed that whoever attempts to complain about the mismanagement of the limited classroom space is either threatened or transferred to a hard-to-reach area, which has since forced the teachers to operate within the restricted space.
“There are endless threats against whoever attempts to complain about limited space, so we are operating within the available cramped area left for us, the staffroom too has been converted into a classroom as a means of securing more study space for the learners,” says the teacher.
Meanwhile, the State House anti-corruption unit’s communications officer, Emmanuel Masembe says that intelligence reports and whistle blowers’ dossiers have placed Mutesi at the center of mismanaging the affairs of Spire road primary school.
Masembe adds that, Mutesi will face two counts of abuse of office and mismanagement of public funds.
The unit launched their inquiries in Jinja city on Thursday where they arrested Mutesi, the deputy city clerk, Peter Mawerere, the senior lands officer, Fred Waiswa, the senior physical planner, Charles Nampendo and the acting southern division clerk, Joy Kasowole, who are being detained at Nalufenya police station.
-URN
