By Devine Atwine
Authorities in Kirihura District lead by the Chief Administrative Officer (CAO) Kiberu Charles Nsubuga, Muhindo Aminabu, the Resident District Commissioner (RDC), and other leaders have expressed concern over the lack of experienced road Engineers and machine operators in the District.
According to CAO Kiberu, lack of experienced road Engineers and machine operators is one of the challenges faced by Kiruhura District, and that it is delaying the tracking of the IKM Sanga-Lake Mbuuro road project funded by the road fund.
This was revealed during the monthly meeting at Sanga town council headquarters, Nyabushozi, Kiruhura District where leaders were reviewing the progress report for the construction of 1KM Sanga -Lake Mburo road for March 2021.
Banyesigye Godfrey, the clerk of the works of Sanga-Lake Mbuuro road project said this challenge doesn’t stop at harming the progress of the project but the situation forced them to hire experienced engineers and machine operators from the ministry of works, Mbarara regional workshop.
“When you are working on a road, you first excavate for deep sub grade which is the part connected with the natural ground. After subgrade, you put a subbase, base ground and then after base ground that’s when you seal the road. These are processes of tarmacking the road and the problem with most of our District engineers and a machine operator does not have experience to work and follow up on these processes”. Banyesigye explained.
He added “our works teams only have enough skills and experience for doing marram roads not tarmac roads since Sanga -Lake Mbuuro road project is the first project ever in the history of Nyabushozi to be done by the District. Other highways that pass in Kiruhura District like Mbarara-Masaka highway, Nyakahita -Ibanda highway were done by Uganda Roads Authority not the District”.
Banyesigye further revealed that the way how Machines like Bulldozer, wheel loader, motor Grader and Vibro Roller are operated and the speed used when doing the marram road differ from when doing tarmac road and that Kiruhura works team doesn’t differentiate the two.
Sanga-Lake Mbuuro road project is the first road project, the tarmac road in sanga and in the whole of Nyabushozi County to be done by the District itself. It will take two years at a cost of Ushs 800M and it is fully funded by the Road Fund, according to CAO Kiberu.
During the meeting, RDC Muhindo asked the Chief Administrative officer to send all the works team for a refresher course training either in Mbarara regional workshop or Kampala so that they gain more experience in dealing with tarmac roads from experienced people.
He advised the works department team that when they get a chance of learning, they should learn to operate one or two machines so that when one gets sick or stuck, and then the District has an alternative.
However, Safari Mugyezi, the Mayor Sanga town council has called upon the Roads Fund team and the ministry of local Government to always send the experienced team of engineers and machine operators to the Districts to work on specific road projects funded by road Fund because most Districts including Kiruhura District doesn’t have such experienced personnel.
“To avoid shoddy work, I advise the ministry of Local Government and the road fund team that whenever they fund any road project either in Kiruhura District or in any other District in the country, money should be accompanied by a team of experienced personnel to work on those projects. if not, then they should always expect shoddy work at the end of the project”. Safari advised.
