By Mulengera Reporters
Appearing before the Physical Infrastructure Committee of Parliament this Wednesday morning where he apologized for being part of a Cabinet whose anomalous decisions of 2021 had resulted into more than 396 local road construction firms financially struggling to the extent that some of them are considering voluntary liquidation, State Minister for Works Musa Ecweru confirmed the GoU risks having its credibility eroded unless something remedial is urgently done.
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Uniting under UNABCEC, the private road construction companies involved in commercial road works late last month petitioned the Speaker of Parliament Anita Among crying out for rescue after UNRA, which gives road construction business to them on behalf of the GoU, accumulated unpaid arrears of up to Shs500bn (counting from January 2021).
In his remarks to the David Karubanga-chaired Committee, Ecweru admitted it was a mistake for the Cabinet, chaired by Gen Museveni, to blindly take away 40% of the budget previously allocated to public infrastructure MDAs like UNRA in order to mitigate negative consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic and the resultant lockdown.
He said that instead of being across board, the Cabinet policy cutting the budget by 40% to concentrate resources on the Covid19 response, should have spared UNRA and other agencies involved in constructing public infrastructure for the country. “I now realize some sectors are unique and this Cabinet policy position on budget cuts of 40% should have gone on case by case basis. I now agree that some sectors are more critical than others and their funding should now be unfrozened. And the roads sector was hurt badly as a result of that Cabinet policy position and it’s the reason UNABCEC members are hurting and I feel for them though I’m reluctant to say much to avoid being seen as their spokesman,” Ecweru said.
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He added that the funding freezes of up to 40% had hurt the roads sector so much that many roads upcountry are increasingly becoming impassable because UNRA can’t carry out routine maintenance anymore. He said in Teso sub region, where he comes from, many roads are in bad shape and this has exposed him to a lot of political pressure from the community.
He gave the example of Kumi-Ngora-Serere road over which the Itesots have come to doubt his effectiveness as the Minister charged with the works docket. “You know the Itesots aren’t very polite. They have been very harsh to me over such roads and I also keep venting my anger on this lady (Kagina) and she tells me Ecweru what do you want me to do when it’s you people who cut the money and left me with nothing? I sympathize with her too because her contractors are being arrested by banks because they have defaulted on loan-repayment,” said Ecweru who also admitted the hard economic situation in government had reduced serious Ministers like him to merely lamenting.
Ecweru also sympathized with UNABCEC members whose petition contents, bashing his own government, he said he agrees with because its 100% factual. “I don’t even know how and what I can defend the government about regarding that petition because everything there is true and genuine. The bigger problem is that I see total contradiction regarding my government on this because we can’t talk about supporting local contractors through local content and at the same time strangle them by coming up with a Cabinet policy position which constraints Allen Kagina, as UNRA accounting officer, from promptly paying them for word done on behalf of the government.”
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Ecweru explained that recently President Museveni assigned him, Kagina and Finance Minister Matia Kasaija to urgently work out a policy guiding on how government can build capacity for local construction firms uniting under UNABCEC and other umbrella organizations. Ecweru said much as government was on the wrong, for constraining UNRA, some of the UNABCEC members weren’t totally without blemish.
Ecweru said many of them are guilty of deliberately cheating government through doing shoddy work adding that such firms are already known and will soon be weeded out. This is how he put his point: “Hear this from me. I’m an arrow commander and I don’t know how to pretend.” Ecweru said that, with Eng Moses Michael Odongo (formerly of the Uganda Road Fund) returning to the Works Ministry as Director Quality Assurance, it’s going to very easy to enforce such regulatory and quality control measures.
Also on the issue of the UNABCEC members’ arrears (now standing at Shs500bn), Ecweru said his hands are tied and had severally referred the matter to the Finance Minister Matia Kasaija who had equally not done much though not all the hope is lost. “It’s saddening that I’m a policy maker who is just lamenting because that has now become the reality. The good news though is that even His Excellence the President, who is the man with the last word on the finances of this country, is now very uncomfortable with this terrible situation in which that Cabinet policy position has put our all-important roads sector,” said Ecweru whose perception of things, painting financial hopelessness, was subsequently expounded upon by UNRA ED Allen Kagina.
Speaking on behalf of UNABCEC‘s 396 members, their President James One Olonya had earlier on explained how many of his members were choking on loans besides being strangled and harassed by URA over VAT and NSSF over unpaid statutory obligations. That URA has gone as far as rushing to court to secure garnishee orders against some of the private road construction firms.
That URA is also seeking to recover the interest of 2% that is chargeable per month on each and every efris invoice issued out against UNRA which hasn’t been paying them since January last year. He demanded that Parliament helps them push both URA and NSSF to give them some grace period since they are just emerging from the Covid19 lockdown which has now been further complicated by UNRA’s inability to pay them promptly.
The UNABCEC also enumerated other MDAs which had defaulted on paying for the infrastructural works done by his members. These include the District Local Governments upcountry and the Ministries of Water, Education, Health, Lands and the one of Works. David Karubanga quickly informed him there wasn’t much the Committee can do because some of these are outside its oversight mandate. This simply implies that the Speaker will have to instruct more Committees to inquire into this arrears problem which the MPs, led by Yusuf Nsibambi (who also the Shadow Minister for Works & Transport), blamed on what they called the incompetence of Minister Matia Kasaija and the others he is leading with at the Finance Ministry. (For comments on this story, call, text or whatsapp us on 0705579994, 0779411734, 0200900416 or email us at [email protected]).
