First lady Janet Kataaha Kainembabazi Museveni’s Ministry of Education and Sports has cracked the whip om contractors who have failed to meet set timelines in the construction of seed secondary schools across the country.
Under the Uganda Inter-Governmental Fiscal Transfers (UgIFT) program, Uganda’s government, through Janet Museveni’s Ministry of Education and Sports, has been undertaking the construction of seed secondary schools in subcounties which had no government-owned (public) secondary school.
The schools were to be constructed in a partnership between the World Bank and Government of Uganda (GoU) starting in the 2018-19 Financial Year. Under the first phase, 117 schools were supposed to be constructed. Contractors were to hand over the schools to the ministry for commissioning in a period of 12 months or one year.
While a little over 100 schools were established as required and are currently offering education services to Ugandan children, about 17 seed secondary school construction projects have stalled.
The schools are found in the following districts: Kyenjojo, Kyegegwa, Kanungu, Namisindwa, Gulu, Omoro, Nwoya, Isingiro, Kagadi, Budaka, Maracha, Amuru, Kibuku, Mbale, and Manafwa.
The delays have irked Janet Museveni who has since ordered the Education and Sports Ministry Permanent Secretary (PS) Ketty Lamaro to cancel the contracts and ensure that the money that had been extended to the contractors for these projects is recovered.
PS Lamaro has since written to all District Chief Administrative Officers (CAOs) in the districts of
in the affected districts, Ketty Lamaro, the permanent secretary at the ministry of Kyenjojo, Kyegegwa, Kanungu, Namisindwa, Gulu, Omoro, Nwoya, Isingiro, Kagadi, Budaka, Maracha, Amuru, Kibuku, Mbale, and Manafwa making directives on what should be done, moving forward.
Observing that the contractors have flouted terms of the contracts signed with government, and labelling them wanting in terms of capacity to complete the projects awarded to them, PS Lamaro directed that no contract extensions should be offered to the companies which failed to execute works as agreed upon in agreements.
Lamaro has also directed CAOs to begin on the process to terminate the contracts that had been offered to these companies and start recruiting new contractors to undertake the civil works.
According to the Permanent Secretary’s guidance, CAOs should work with relevant officials in their local government jurisdictions to calculate the value of the work that the companies have already done, so that the contractors can be paid for only the work done if no monies had not been advanced to them to the tune of completed works.
With this frustration, it is clear why President Museveni ordered that the UPDF engineering brigade should take over juicy school constriction contracts. (Read Story Here).
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