{UAH} Kirunda Farouk: Kampala-Entebbe highway completion May 09, 2014

Khodeyo Kirunda Farouk

 

Let me advise the office of the president through you. I am in education business, now for the eightieth year in Uganda.  Our education is rigid, theoretical, undirected and retrogressive!

It takes only two years(!) to train engineers of all categories.  This I saw happen in Sweden, just two years - the rest period engineers are in the field gaining practical experience.

My own children before they joined University were all certified junior engineers from their secondary education! Universities train consultants not implementing and designing engineers:

Let us get special colleges to train;

a. Bridge construction engineers,

b. Dam construction engineers,

c. Machine design engineers,

d. Transformer and Turbine design engineer,

e. Motor design engineers etc. 

f. Processing machines (seed oil, coffee powder, cocoa, iris potatoes powder, cattle feeds)

I can assist in this endeavour so that our country does not lose out completely.  We are losing in terms of; competencies, skills, vacancies, management abilities, besides independence and money.

We buy machinery plus requisite labour to maintain and run the machines!

 

You can't design and manufacture even a safety pin because we lack industrial designers (artists) and engineering capabilities. Well, we can design but we will not produce safety pins because we do not have machine designing engineers as well.

We can't design shoes, exactly for the same reason! Just shoes you can imagine – yet in Europe there are skilled shoe designs without a degree but a mere certificate! Many Ugandans would be making shoes (employment) from their homes even cloth (employment) since we produce cotton.

Professor Gamaliel Mugumbya is the only textile and weaving specialist in this country- how has the government helped him to expand this trade?

Why Mivumba?

In Sweden there are thousands of small cloth producers from cotton(which they do not grow).

The same goes with car designers and motor cycles, bicycles! In Denmark simple people design bicycles in their homes and sell them in shops in Copenhagen- see how many types of model bicycles in their streets.

Have you seen the drainage system Indian engineers designed for Kampala as compared to the drainage system in Jinja for example or the Japanese designed in Nsambya Ggaba- Mengo - Natete roads ?!!

Those Chinese are not special in any way!

I will offer my school own school http://www.siup.ac.ug/?page_id=6   to educate engineers. I will get the professors or technical personnel to do it here in Uganda, if the Uganda government can finance engineering education for only for two years, for each student enrolled and pay fees to training technicians in critical engineering fields.

Engineering is like art, just art besides some other basic principals.

I got time off, went to see what the Chinese were doing- can you imagine the Chinese are even controlling drilling machine where columns to support the flyover are placed! And Ugandans, they stand by the road side to see these wonder people.

It is heart rendering and baffling. 

I am concerned with this typical African behaviorism.  Surely we can't expect every small project to be done by china and being financed by the Chinese. Is this different from imperialism and colonialism? What happens when China's economy collapses?

This typically means, we have no education capability to train in advanced road design, modelling and construction. China is constructing dams, china is constructing presidential offices, china is is producing steel for Uganda, china is building factories for Uganda run and managed by Chinese.

 

In fact we must a law in place to force all entrepreneurs in this sector (ZIMWE, KASAAYI, MUKALAZI, SEMBULE) to go for training for two years.

Bwanika

On Friday, May 9, 2014 8:24:44 PM UTC+2, kirundastatehouse wrote:President Yoweri Museveni has said in order for investors to compete
favourably on the market, government has prioritized infrastructure
development such as electricity, construction of roads, railway lines
and ICT that greatly impact on the cost of doing business.

The President was today meeting the Chairman and President of China
Communications Construction Group Mr. Chen Fenjian whose firm is
responsible for the construction of the Entebbe-Kampala Highway which
will link the town of Entebbe in Wakiso District to the city of
Kampala.

"You cannot compete when you don't have enough electricity, the main
purpose is to manufacture products that are competitive in the market
in terms of price and quality" he told his guest.

The construction of the highway which is already underway is estimated
to cost US$476 million (Shs1.19 trillion). Of this, US$350 million
(Shs 875 billion) is a loan from the Exim Bank of China at 2% annual
interest. The remaining US$176 million (Shs 315 billion) will be
provided by the Government of Uganda. Government will provide another
US$40 million (Shs 100billion) to compensate land owners along the
route of the highway.

The highway will start at Abayita Ababiri, on the existing
Kampala-Entebbe Road, go through Ssisa, Kabojja, and end at Busega,
where it will join the Kampala Northern Bypass Highway, a distance of
approximately 37.23 kilometres (23.13 mi). Another 14.13 kilometres
(8.78 mi) of highway will connect Munyonyo on the northern shores of
Lake Victoria with the Highway at Kajjansi. The entire highway will be
a four-lane, dual carriage expressway, with limited access.

Chen Fenjian assured the President that the project completion will be
on time and that his group is also interested in cement production in
Karamoja sub-region, the construction of the railway lines in Uganda
and the building of Kampala to Jinja high way.

END
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_____________________________

Bwanika Nakyesawa Luwero

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