{UAH} SUFFER CABINDISTS: Makerere University bakery turned into Police quarters

Makerere University bakery turned into Police quarters

Written by URN

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Created: 08 September 2016

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The building that once housed Makerere University bakery has been turned into quarters for police officers.
 
Between 1992 and 2014, Uganda's oldest university made its own bread from its own bakery and distributed it to staff and students in different halls of residence. At its production peak, the bakery made 1,500 loaves of bread per day.
 
In August 2014, the bakery was among a number of units closed by the university after it outsourced meals in the halls of residence. Also closed was a maize mill, which produced wheat and other flour.
 
The facility is now housing police officers from the nearby Makerere University Police post after management gave them a go ahead to occupy the building in 2014. The once vibrant bakery now brings imagery of the dilapidated and abandoned structures.
 
The building now has temporary structures for security officials, abandoned receipt books, dusty bread pans and trays all lying deserted in the mesh cages. The bakery was found next to Africa and Livingstone halls.
 
One of the former workers, who did not want to be named, lamented that the bakery is now a barracks.

The dilapidated bakery now occupied by police

Standing and gazing at the formerly functioning machines but now defunct, the former worker said: "Look at the mixer; they took away its switches."

Its closure left its workers equally deserted and the facility remained idle as the university halted producing bread.
 
The chief security officer of Makerere University, Jackson Mucunguzi, confirms that both the maize mill and the bakery are being occupied by his men and says they can leave anytime the university wants to use the facility.

"The university had insecurity and they pleaded to the IGP to give them more manpower. So we were added more manpower and to be effective they have to be staying in the university. So when we told the management, they found that the bakery services had been outsourced and there was space. So that is how police got the bakery space", Mucunguzi said.

According to Musa Kwezi, a former employee, the decision to establish a bakery and maize mill was reached at in a meeting of all hall wardens summoned by the then dean of students Mr George Kihuguru. This was after complaints from students that the university was serving them poor quality posho and bread.
 
"Actually [initially] they were using suppliers. You would visit Nsibirwa you find there is a different thing, bread was not uniform, posho, rice was not of high quality. Lumumba wardens would complain of stones, these ones [of other halls] their rice is okay. Until they said how do we get a solution to this problem to have uniform quality across", Kwezi says.

The abandoned versity bread distribution van

Kwezi adds that at the time of its closure, the bakery had reached a capacity of producing at least 1,500 loaves of bread branded 'Versity Bread' which was sold in the university canteens and in other areas in Kampala.
 
About 11 workers including storekeepers, chief bakers, security guards and machine operators were employed in the bakery.
 
The university has since neither terminated their services nor allocated them new work places. Because of spending a lot of time minus work, Kwezi says that most of them have been thrown out of the houses they were renting.
 
"They [former workers] are renting, they are there suffering. Some have been thrown out of houses they were renting, some have even moved back to the villages because after the closure, out head of department, who was the dean of students actually denied us, saying; I don't know these people, I came and got them there" Kwezi said.

Gwokto La'Kitgum

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