A section of councilors in Masaka City Councilors and sports fans has considered petitioning the Inspector General of Government, seeking a special inquiry into the abilities of the contractors who they accuse of lacking the capacity to deliver on the project.
Kaleeta Construction Company Limited and Cornerstone Design and
Engineering Limited, contractors hired to reconstruct the Masaka Recreational
Grounds are on the spot for delayed execution of the project works.
In April , the companies were hired as main
contractor and engineering consultant respectively, to execute the project
works at a cost of 18 billion shillings in a period of eighteen months.
However, they are currently on the spot for their alleged failure to implement the project works in time.
A section of councilors in Masaka City and sports
fans have considered petitioning the Inspector General of Government, calling for a
special inquiry into the abilities of the contractors who they accuse of
lacking the capacity to deliver on the project.
Rogers Bulegyeya, the National Resistance Movement-NRM
Chairperson for Masaka City also Male City Youth Councilor argues that the
contractor is operating far behind schedule and has failed to mobilize the
materials on site.
He indicates that during the inspection tour of the City Works
committee, they observed that four months after the project commencement date,
the contractor is still fidgeting to mobilize materials and workforce, which raises suspicions of their capacity to deliver the project in time.
He argues that the contractor has hardly completed 10% of the
project works after the first four months. At the site, the contractor is currently undertaking excavation
of the pitch area, and assembling materials to being electing stand
columns.
Bulegyeya is pessimistic about the contractor’s capacity to
deliver on such a big project, wondering whether the procurement process was dully followed to source for the best contractors.
Luganda Audio
//Cue in: “egyo nabadde wa….
Cue out: …..nga eno ennene.”//
Luke Ssekamwa and Alan Mutagubya, the City Workers’ Councilors
and a local sports fanatic respectively, who also visited the project site,
also cast doubt on the quality of materials being used in construction.
Mutagubya observes that the contractor is using smaller size
iron bars to construct the pillars of the pavilion and spectators’ stands,
arguing that this can hardly provide a firm foundation for the sports facility
that will be used by over 10,000 people.
Ssekamwa also argues that the contractor is too evasive to the local
community that seeks information about the ongoing project works and its
progress, which raises suspicion about what his
outputs.
They observe that it is high time the Inspector General of
Government picked a special interest in their project, suspecting there could be corruption tendencies that infiltrated during the process of awarding the
contract.
Luganda Audio
//Cue in: “emiromo gyonna….
Cue out: ….sigusimyemu naakamu.”//
But Engineer John Lule, the project lead Supervising
Consultant dismisses the leaders’ suspicions about the contractor’s
capacity, saying the project is moving on schedule.
He revealed that they suffered delays at
the preliminary stage of the project because they took longer to mobilize materials, explaining they are going to work out a catch-up plan
to compensate for the lost time.
Luganda//Cue in: “entandika yali nzibuzibu….Cue out; …..gitubeere wamu.”//
Godfrey Ejau, the Masaka City Deputy Town Clerk acknowledges the
delays in the project progress, saying, they are partly blamed on the
reevaluation appeal against the contractor by whistleblowers who petitioned the
tribunal of the Directorate of Public Procurement and Disposal of Public
Assets-PPDA, alleging corruption in the awarding of the contract.
He says that the process of reviews that led to the dismissal of the
appeal cost the project time, which the contractor is yet to
compensate
