By John V Sserwaniko
Buyende LC5 Chairman Mr K Ziribasanga has responded to demands by the Uganda Roads Fund (URF) boss Eng Michael Odongo to have the district engineer Zijja Aggrey reprimanded for the damage that was occasioned onto the district’s only grader that was donated by the President sometime back. The grader was crushed by a district employee a one Azira who Odongo says had no business driving it around because he wasn’t qualified yet the Ministry of Works guidelines governing the usage of this road equipment are very clear. Mr. Ronald Namugera, who is the Registrar at the URF, maintained in a phone interview this morning that some officials must be reprimanded for what he called negligence in handling government equipment. The URF narrative is that Zijja must be reprimanded because as District Engineer he is charged with custody of the entire road equipment and he is answerable in case anything wrong happens. In simple terms they want Zijja reprimanded including being expelled from the job with disgrace. Three weeks ago, Eng Odongo addressed hundreds of District Engineers who the MoLG P/S Ben Kumumanya gathered at Hotel Africana for a day long retreat. While there, Odongo faulted the engineers of not taking their job seriously which he said explains why society generally treats them with contempt. He signled out the Buyende district engineer and bitterly talked about him as a best example to illustrate negligence. However, to Odongo’s consternation, the Buyende D/E was nowhere to be seen.”I hope he isn’t trying to run away from what he did. That grader is property of the GoU and the district engineer will have to pay for his negligence,” said Odongo who Kumumanya had invited to help him understand why many of the D/Es were failing the Engineers Registration Board (ERB) assessment exams to qualify to become certified engineers. During that same retreat it emerged, as revealed by Kabarole CAO Dunstan Balaba, who is the chairman of all CAOs, that whereas the law requires all D/Es to have ERB registration, less than 20% were ERB-registered. Odongo made the meeting agree there was a crisis whereby many of the wealthy D/Es can’t be employed beyond the districts where they currently work because KCCA, UNRA, WB and other international organizations only consider registered/ERB-certified engineers. Otherwise you remain a pupil engineer regardless of so many years of service.
BACK TO BUYENDE;
In a phone interview this morning, Buyende district LC5 Chairman who stands accused of protecting Engineer Zijja said no action will be taken against the D/E. Mr. Ziribasanga maintains its the works ministry and URF to blame because “they are the ones who trained these operators like Azira and passed them over to us as qualified enough to operate the equipment.” Consequently, Ziribasanga says the URF and the Ministry must answer for Azira’s ineptness and not his district. “They can make their demands but from our side the position is the engineer won’t be punished because he has no case to answer. Why do they rush to pass judgment before talking to us to understand the context of what happened?” He added that the damage that occurred to the grader prompted them to surrender it to the Works Ministry regional mechanical workshop at Bugembe. “In any case there is no work that has stalled because of what happened to the grader because we borrow from nearby districts or from Bugembe. Our roads are very okay and that’s why even the President was impressed during his recent visit to the district,” Ziribasanga explained. He defiantly said what happened to the grader was expected because it was a factory default and not a result of poor workmanship on the part of the D/E or Azira the operator. “And gratefully the grader is now back. The district met the cost and we replaced the broken part. It was on our cost as the district and we aren’t calling on the URF to come to our rescue,” he said adding it’s two weeks since the controversial grader was returned to Buyende after being repaired at Bugembe. He said the works ministry should own up most of the time “because its them who imported equipment that was faulty and broken.” Saying its a much bigger problem in the districts than Engineer Odongo and his URF technocrats might think, Ziribasanga said: “In fact as we talk, we don’t have a qualified engineer because even Mr. Zijja is just helping us. He is a water engineer and doesn’t qualify. He is at U3 and not registered with ERB. We have been advertising in newspapers for someone with E1 and is certified by ERB and we have failed to get one. Its not because the money is little. No. Its because guys of that qualification are not there. We shall appreciate if Mulengera knows any and send them to us. We have totally failed and decided to head hunt but we are still failing.” Ziribasanga begged the URF bosses to understand the complications that come with employing someone (eg Aggrey Zijja) you clearly know doesn’t qualify. “How do you then begin to expect too much from such a person?” Ziribasanga wondered. He revealed that whereas he was ready to ensure nothing is done to reprimand Zijja the D/E (because he is innocent in the circumstances), Azira the operator had already been dismissed for both negligence and being inadequately qualified. He says Azira’s qualifications is something URF and the Works ministry must answer “because our work was to send him to them for training and I was always doubting if there was any serious training they would give them as operators of these district graders in just a few days.” For comments, call/text/WhatsApp us on 0703164755!
