The executive director of Kampala Capital City Authority (KCCA), Jennifer Musisi, has agreed to compensate Makerere College School for the damage incurred when part of their school buildings were destroyed during the ongoing works to expand the Wandegeya-Makerere -Nakulabye road, last week.
Musisi was responding to a protest by the school’s Parents and Teachers Association (PTA).
“We are going to meet all the costs that the school shall incur as they relocate the female students to Mary Stuart hall… on top of relocating the main administration to pave way for the construction of the road,” Musisi said last Thursday.
The city authorities also agreed to replace the gate and perimeter wall destroyed during the excavation. The comments came as Musisi inspected the site of the damage, after parents intervened and stopped road excavations that also saw the school’s main administration block and nearby six-storied girls hostel affected.
The PTA chairman, Goddy Muhumuza, was particularly irked since neither the school, nor its landlord, Makerere University, where he serves as legal officer, had been consulted.
However, after Musisi showed up, Muhumuza commended the KCCA executive director and the university top management team for showing interest in the school’s 2,400 enrolment.
“We are grateful because you have now got the real true picture of what we have been complaining about and have appreciated our concerns,” said Muhumuza said.
With the school term due to start this week, the 750 female students usually housed in the hostel will be relocated to Mary Stuart hall in the university, until repairs are completed, hopefully before Makerere reopens for the first semester in October.
The city authorities will also set up a wooden walkway for the students to cross over from the hostel to the school under what is known as the Kampala Infrastructure Development Project II (KIDP 2).
The KIDP2 project coordinator, Charles Tumwebaze, and his supervisor Eng Steven Kibuuka later apologized to the school, saying the construction workers had made mistakes to demolish the school gate and perimeter wall without the consent of the school authorities.