Lands Minister Judith Nabakooba has inspected USMID-AF road works in Mbarara and Ntungamo Districts and urged contractors to complete assigned projects within the set timelines.
The minister who also met with the City mayors of Mbarara and Ntungamo warned contractors about delays in execution of their respective contracts and said they will pay a heavy price if they don’t meet the agreed upon deadlines .
In the company of Mbarara city mayor Robert Mugabe Kakyebezi, Minister Nabakooba has inspected road works on Victor Bwana undertaken by Multiplex Construction Company- Stanley, Mosque circular, and Ruhaara which are being constructed by CICO.
Mr Kakyebezi told the minister that the contractor had completed only 40 percent of the project works assigned to them -a situation that may lead the construction work not to be completed on time. Mr Simon Odoch from Hersun Consult, the consultants on the project attributed the delays to one of the project managers who was away doing exams.
We are at the formation level and doing drainage, the remaining but is easy, by next week, we shall have white stones on ground. The remaining work is just one month if Multiplex can get serious,” he said.
Nabakooba was disappointed by how local contractors keep lobbying for work yet they don’t have capacity to execute assigned projects on time costing government a of money . “ Our people have been patient enough. We are not going to allow this kind of sloppiness to continue. I am coming back next week to ensure all these projects are completed as agreed in the in the contract documents ,” Nabakooba asserted .
In Ntungamo, the minister inspected roads works together with Ntungamo Mayor Mr Jacob Kafureka. She was angered by the contractor’s behaviour of switching equipment between Mbarara , Ntungamo and Kabaale which slows down the implementation timelines.
Leaders here told the minister how it is hard to supervise the contractor since each time they ask him for progress of the work he openly tells them how they are not the ones that warded him the contractor.
Multiplex Construction Company was given a multi-billion contract under USMID-AF cluster 6 Batch 1 to construct roads totaling 7.42 kms. The cluster includes road works in Mbarara City, Ntungamo Municipality and Kabale Municipality.
