By Lukayya Nakamanya
President Museveni has directed the Health and Education ministries to use the army construction brigade to undertake government dvelopment projects.
In his July 1, 2021 letter addressed to the minister of Education and Sports Janet Museveni and minister of Health Jane Ruth Aceng, Museveni notes with concern that many government projects are taking too long to be completed due to the lengthy procurement process and other challenges like corruption by some unscrupulous government workers.
“I am very certain we can avoid all these delays in implementing government construction projects by utilizing the army construction brigade to undertake the works,” Museveni stressed.
The directive comes at a time when many government development projects in different sectors have stalled causing losses and also affecting service delivery in one way or another.
For instance, in the financial year 2019/2020, the ministry of Education was expected to construct secondary schools under a World Bank loan project; Intergovernmental Fiscal Transfers Program in over 387 sub-counties. However, to date, the contractors are yet to hand over several schools to the government.
In January 2020, Alex Kakooza, the ministry of Education permanent secretary while appearing before parliament’s education committee blamed the delay on contractors who said most of the time fail to mobilize resources.
Now, according to the presidential directive, all development projects lined up in the financial year, 2021/2022 in the ministries of Education and Health will be undertaken by the army as a pilot project.
The two ministries are already lined up to receive up to Shs 1.4 trillion in loans from the World Bank, under two separate projects.
This will see the construction of a public secondary school and health center IIIs in each sub-county countrywide. If the pilot is successful, Museveni notes that his directive will at a later stage, be expanded to cover other sectors in government.
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