Gulu Municipal Councilors have raised questions over the competence of the Municipal Engineer in handling civil works saying his academic papers need to be scrutinized.
The councilors criticized the engineer, Christopher Ojok who is in- charge of buildings for failing to ensure that the civil works that are awarded by the council to contractors are finished to high standards.
Robert Acaye, the Councilor V for Kabedo- Opong parish who also doubles as the Secretary for Education and Health pointed out that there are several facilities including teachers’ staff house, latrines and incinerators that were build but fall short of set standards.
Acaye cited an incinerator build at Bar-Dege Health Centre III, where the height is just 2.6 meters making it a potential health risk when put to use. According to Acaye, the height of the incinerator should have been higher than the 2.6 metres considering the smoke that will come out of it when medical equipment is being disposed of.
Acaye said such work raises doubt on the technical competence of the engineer who approves the designs.
He adds that Ojok’s academic papers should be verified.
Ocama Amidi, another councilor said he was very disappointed by the engineer who sanctioned the use of 10MM iron bar on a bridge along Alur road in Bar- Dege division.
Ocama said because of the poor Bill of Quantity (BoQ) that led to the procurement of undersized materials, only after six months, the bridge is almost collapsing.
The Deputy Mayor, Pauline Lukwayi, agreed and said due to negligence by the Engineer, this has resulted into poor quality works and at the end, the tax payers have lost millions shillings in paying for it.
Lukwayi said some of the road works are visibly substandard.
Poor done works according to the councilors are; a two stand latrine at Laroo Primary School, bitumen at Awach road which cost around 300 Million shillings and teachers’ staff House at Pece Primary School (89M).
Ojok however dismissed the allegation saying he was never personally involved in drawing the BoQs for the said buildings. Instead, Ojok said, he discovered later on that a lot of things were missing in the BoQ which was drawn by another person.
The engineer added that the criticism against him by the Councilors is being done in bad faith.
The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) and the Auditor General report also criticized Gulu Municipal Council engineering department for sanctioning shoddy works worth millions of shillings.
