A bitter row has erupted between Betty Nambooze, the Mukono Municipality Member of Parliament and residents of Lweza in Mukono Central Division for using community mobilized resources to construct a shoddy bridge.
At the beginning of this year, residents rallied by Lweza LCI Chairperson, Joachim Ssendi mobilized resources from the community to construct a road bridge connecting Lweza to Kitega village after the prior was washed away by heavy rains.
Ssendi’s voice was echoed by Nambooze until the bridge was commissioned two weeks ago for public use; however last night part of it was washed away by heavy rains.
The affected road is sometimes used as an alternative route for vehicles evading heavy traffic jams along Kampala-Jinja Highway to connect to Katosi road.
Residents claim the engineer lacked competent skills to handle the work. Umar Ntabaazi, a resident at Kitega wonders why the engineers commenced the construction works before securing enough materials.
He notes that engineers hoodwinked residents that what they had contributed was enough to complete the work and fit the bridge designs.
“Residents were still willing to contribute because they had committed themselves to that. Now, they have not used the bridge for a month and it is gone. In this case, the community’s mobilized resources have been put to waste.” Ntabaazi says.
At the start, the community steering committee budgeted to use Shillings 50 million for the works though at the end over Shillings 90 million was realized.
Henry Mukasa Bakireke, the husband of Nambooze and also a road technician and owner of Bakizi Construction Company was contracted to do the work. During the commissioning, his team noted that resources mobilized by the community were not enough to do the required work.
Joachim Ssendi, the local council-LCI Chairperson of Lweza says the bridge was constructed as a quick alternative to ease movement in the area as they wait for authorities to intervene.
Fred Kiyimba, a resident in Mukono says running water slightly changed its route and affected other people’s properties such as animals besides entering into houses.
He is much concerned about children crossing to study at Lweza primary school rotating long distances. They will have to travel an extra distance rotating through the villages of Nabuti and Dandira to connect to Lweza or Kitega.
Mukono Municipality Town Clerk, Godfrey Kisekka says his office earlier warned the community against undertaking the task of constructing the bridge besides petitioning the office of the Resident District Commissioner asking her to cancel the works since they lacked technical supervision and would cause insecurity in the area.
“Sorry for the community that had raised their own funds. As Gen. Katumba Wamala, the Minister for Works and Transport promised in writing, soon funds will be sent from Uganda Road Fund for emergency construction on ministry standards, with qualified engineers from the ministry to support our municipal council qualified engineers.” Kisekka says.
Mukono Member of Parliament, Betty Namboze says several works are required to be done and they will need government support to be completed. She is however aggrieved with people pinning her husband, Bakireke of misusing community resources.
Audio: Nambooze Lamenting
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