Joy as EC Pilots Office Construction Works in West Nile
EC and Arua City officials during the site inspection on Friday - Photo Credit: Andrew Cohen Amvesi
ARUA. The Electoral Commission (EC) of Uganda has started the journey of building its own country-wide homes in the West Nile sub-region.
Since its establishment more than twenty years ago, the EC has been carrying out its activities in rented premises, which is why the commission has embarked on the process of constructing its own offices in all the regions of Uganda.
The Shs4.698 billion Arua regional center for EC of Uganda (West Nile sub-region office) project, which is under construction in Arua City, was launched in December last year. It is expected to be ready for contractual handover on December 15, 2024.
Speaking during a site visit by EC officials led by Justice Simon Mugenyi Byabakama, the EC Chairperson, on Friday, July 19, 2024, Lt. Alfred Niwamanya, the site engineer, said the project construction works is now at 40 percent.
Niwamanya expressed optimism about finishing the work even before the set deadline, saying that most of the difficult components of the project have already been completed.
“The overall progress of the works is at 40 percent. Chair, informing you of 40 percent, you may wonder, but we have like two items that we have not touched: the toilet and the gatehouse. Those are small components of the project, but they make my average look very low, yet it is bigger than that,” Niwamanya explained.
He said: “That percentage is coming from preliminaries which is at 92 percent, site preparation and earth works which is at 80 percent, administration block is at 52 percent, the workshop and warehouse is at 53 percent, gatehouse 0 percent and toilets 0 percent but I’m not worried chairman. We are still committed and we are still on schedule to complete this work by the end of this year.”
The Arua regional center for EC of Uganda construction project is being undertaken by National Enterprise Corporation (NEC) Construction Works and Engineering, a subsidiary of NEC which was incorporated on October 18, 1991 to handle construction and engineering works for armed forces, government departments and private sectors.
In his remarks, Justice Byabakama said what they observed at the site was quite impressive.
“I would like to commend NEC workers for the good work they are doing. They are doing it on time. They have assured us that they can deliver the work as projected earlier, and from what we see, I have no reason to doubt that they will live up to that commitment,” Byabakama said.
Byabakama noted that since the commission came into existence more than 20 years ago, they have not had any property they call their own.
“All the premises we are utilizing currently are rented premises. Now we think this is going to improve. One is the quality of our work. You can see this warehouse; we are going to safely and properly store the electoral materials even after the electoral processes are concluded. Our staff, I think, are going to have ample sitting space, there is space for our stakeholders, the visitors who come to interact with members of the commission staff, and it is also an indicator that the EC is very critical in the political affairs of this country, being the vehicle that is mandated to conduct regular free and fair elections,” Byabakama said.
“This is some kind of pilot project. We also intend to replicate this to other parts of the country. We have 12 regions as EC in the country, West Nile is just one of them. So, we pray and hope that the government will have the requisite resources to enable us to replicate this project to other parts of the country. We really want to thank the government who have fully funded this project. We don’t have any donor fund on this project, what we have is the government of Uganda singularly and wholly funding this project,” Byabakama added.
Charles Ichogor, the Arua Resident City Commissioner (RCC) who accompanied the EC officials to the site, equally commended NEC Construction Works and Engineering for the work well done.
He promised to use the project under construction as a case study for some of the city’s contractors who are doing shoddy work.