China Henan International Company (CHICO), the Chinese firm that has been contracted to undertake multimillion shillings road works within Gulu Municipality has dismissed claims that its manpower has been overstretched.
The allegation follows failure by CHICO to complete works on several roads as per the contract agreements.
Mr George Aligech Lapir, the President Gulu Municipal Development Forum (GDMF) noted, “Because the Chinese road construction company has been awarded dozens of road works, it has overstretched manpower making it difficult for them to beat datelines.”
Aligech cited Gulu-Atiak Highway, the 3 kms roads within Gulu Municipality, Arua road rehabilitation and Lira Municipal road works among others.
The President GMDF explained that, “Due to fatigue, the workers have lost energy to finish work within the specified time because of the heavy workload.”
In August last year, CHICO signed a 12- month contract with Gulu Municipal Council to upgrade Cemetery road, Labourline road, Acholi Lane, Alokolum Road, and Ring road.
But close to eleven months into the Shs9 billion road project, only 60 percent of the works on 3 kilometers roads has been partially completed.
However, Mr Charles Moro, the Human Resource Officer for CHICO admitted that though they were awarded a number of contracts to upgrade roads, they are not suffering from any shortage of manpower.
Moro said, “We were evaluated during the award of contract and found to be capable of undertaking the work without much problems.”
“When the project kicked-off, there were setbacks such as reallocation of utilities such as optic fibers, electric poles, sewerages and piped water lines” Moro added.
He also noted that the redesign of the roads has caused challenges since the previous design was not fitting with the current size of the road.
Other factors were rain and compensation of those affected by the road works.
So far, CHICO has written to their client (Gulu Municipal Council) seeking for an extension of the contract by another two more months to enable them complete works awarded to the company.
The Deputy Town Clerk Gulu Municipality, Mr John Oola confirmed that they have received a request from CHICO and are looking into it for consideration.
“Despite the delays, the contractor has done significant work since May when the actual works begun,” He said.
Mr Gabindadde – Musoke, the Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Lands, Housing and Urban Development who toured the roads under rehabilitation two weeks ago said he is not impressed with the current pace of work by the company.
He however, gave the green light to Municipal officials to consider extending the contract period in order to enable CHICO to finish the current works.
Out of the 14 municipalities in the country which are benefiting under the infrastructural development program being funded by the World Bank through the government of Uganda under the Uganda Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development (USMID) project, CHICO has won more than half of the multibillion shillings road works contracts.
