Mbarara RCC warns MPs to stop wasting taxpayers’ money on monitoring
MBARARA– Mbarara Resident City Commissioner [RCC] Lt Col. James Mwesigye, has condemned the manner in which parliamentary committees move to local governments to threaten project implementers without causing any change.
He said this to the Parliamentary Physical Infrastructural Committee while monitoring Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development [USMID] roads in Mbarara City on Tuesday.
According to Asse Abireeba, the Mbarara City Clerk, government on 18th May 2021 awarded to Multiplex Limited and Ditaco International trade a joint venture contract to construct three roads in Mbarara City.
The three roads are Major Victor Bwana [0.95Km], Galt Road [0.65Km] and Stanley Road [0.78Km] which will cost the government Shs23billion under the USMID programme.
The construction contract left with two weeks was to take 12 months and another 12 months of defects liability.
The frustrated Members of Parliament threatened to terminate the contract claiming that both the contractor and his supervisors are working hard to fail the government projects.
However, RCC Mwesigye said Members of Parliament are to blame when it comes to failed projects in the country.
“I am not happy until I see the results because we are good at talking but when it comes to implementation nothing is done” he said.
Mwesigye says, this is not the first committee to appear in Mbarara on road projects.
“We have had three committees of parliament including the Parliamentary Accounts Committee [PAC]. They found rotten things but we didn’t see any results and we cannot have a bad beginning and then expect a good end. You only stop at making reports and file your accountability and things end” Mwesigye insisted
He added that together with the Mayor, they had a bad record and tried to block the said contractor but were disappointed by the central government that insisted on awarding the contract to Multiplex Limited.
“We said this company has never done any work anywhere and our town clerk put an administrative review and we rejected but the Ministry of Lands gave the contractor a go ahead and these are now the main results you are seeing today” Mwesigye said
This project died on the first day when we heard a person that was coming to take on the contract had failed a central market in Masaka and was even blacklisted in Kampala yet in Mbarara he was competing with a Chinese company which had done a 30km road, Mwesigye added
He also reported that the contracts committee contributes much to failing government projects.
“Chairman of the contracts committee is another God in heaven here he will beat you technically using the funny laws that protect him. So, when we get a chance and some of you come here, we get hope of being helped but when you also go there and things don’t change then we get disappointed” RCC tells MPs
Lord Mayor, Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi says what is in Mbarara is the same thing happening in other neighbouring municipalities where the contractor was awarded the contracts.
“What we are facing in Mbarara is the same thing as what people of Fort Portal, Hoima, and Mbale were facing last time. Actually, some officials from the ministry called me saying that Mbarara people are stubbornly delaying the project. They even threatened us that the money for the project will be called back and we were left with no option but to sign” said Kakyebezi
The City Clerk confirmed that the contractor has already been paid Shs700M telling the committee that the project is slow compared to the time left.
“The contract is an admeasure contract where we only pay for the works completed. Of course, they were given an advance payment of Shs4.5billion which is secured by the bank as bank guarantee that we can cash out at any time and we have only paid him Shs700M with a pending certificate of Shs1.2billion”
But by the look of things, the contractor has no capacity to construct the three roads because in January the performance was at 9 percent and as an entity, we are struggling with him, Abireeba adds.
The City Clerk says, he has already petitioned to the solicitor general for guidance to make the project get completed.
“I have already written to the solicitor general to advise me on the implication of such a situation” Abireeba said.
However, Eng. Lawrence Walulya the USMID project Engineer said works are on-going though blames the delay on design reviews and reallocation of utilities like Water and Sewerage for National Water, Internet lines, Electricity and Telephone lines, and Cameras of police.
“We had problems with relocation because the money we have in the budget was much lower than what was quoted by the sub-contractors so this also hindered our progress. For example, on NWSC, what the sub-contractor provided as a reserve price was Shs1.8billion yet in the BOQs we had Shs400M which took us some time. Then on Stanley road we have an issue with a church who are insisting that we should not put a crossing culvert in their land”
He says on Major-victor-bwana road work progress stands at 37.42 percent, Stanley road at 5.89 percent and Galt road is at 19.75 percent making an average of 30.82 percent on the three roads.
“We are optimistic that from May, all the reallocation issues will have been sorted and will have no more issues that will let us down”
David Karubanga, the Chairman of the Parliamentary Physical Infrastructural committee and MP Kigorobya threatened to have the contract with Multiplex cancelled.
“Actually, there is a pending petition before one of our parliamentary committees seeking for cancellation of Multiplex Limited contractor for failing to deliver which we will have to follow up”
He assured the city leadership of Mbarara that he will follow up the matter so that the three roads get completed.
“I can assure you that this is the committee that is responsible for Ministry of Lands. We’ve not been coming because parliament got budgetary issues with money for the oversight and there are no way two members of parliament would walk to Mbarara but we now want to see where the problem is?
Also, Benson Tumuramye, PPDA threatened to terminate Multiplex limited company’s contract because of shoddy works and delays towards completion of Mbarara roads.
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