Construction Of St Janani Luwum Church Resumes

Construction of multi-billion St Janani Luwum church in Kitgum Town Parish, Kitgum Municipality has resumed after President Museveni partly fulfilled a pledge of 50 Million Shillings.

President Museveni while presiding over the ground-breaking for constructing the church in 2018 pledged iron sheets, cement, and angle bars to finish the construction of the church.   Although the President later donated 560 iron sheets towards the construction of the church last year, Kitgum Diocese failed to receive pledge on the angle bars and cement amounting to 368 million shillings.

Rev Canon Robinson Oginga Odinga, the Kitgum Town Parish Vicar says that they recently embarked on construction works after receiving 50 million shillings part of 368 million shillings pledge from the president.

He says despite the small amount of money they received, they have decided to purchase angle bars to kick-off roofing the church whose construction had stalled.

Rev Odinga says they intend to roof the church to help them in other activities that need space with shade in the parish.

“We shall partially roof this building because we want to put the money we received into use. This money is partly what the president pledged to us and we hope that the full pledge will be fulfilled,” Says Rev Odinga.

Rev Odinga notes that the church construction has this year stagnated due to the covid-19 pandemic that saw houses of worship closed down and several businesses from which the church gets support through offertory closed down for many months.

He called on the president to fulfill the pledge to enable the church to become fully functional since the current church is not spacious enough to host Christians amidst the covid-19 pandemic. Rev Odinga has also appealed to other stakeholders to support the vision of the diocese in fulfilling its dream of building a modern church.

Don Wanyama, the Senior Presidential Spokesperson says the pledge will be fulfilled although he didn’t give a reason why it was delivered partly to Kitgum Diocese.

He advised Rev Odinga to always liaise with the State House to follow up on the pledge.

“For the official report, I will cross-check with the state House comptroller and find out,” Wanyama told URN in an interview Thursday.

Lack of funds over the years have crippled construction of the church named in memory of slain former archbishop of the Church of Uganda St Janani Luwum.  Since 2003, Kitgum Diocese has been hunting for funds to close the 3.5 billion shillings’ budget meant to finish construction of the church.