UPDF Engineering Brigade: Bagwere chicks don’t lay eggs, they give birth to real babies

The other problem is that unlike some of our more renown friends in the south-west of Uganda (sounds like a coffee conversation), we Bagwere are very, very shy. 

A few days ago, my Congo-man guitarist friend Motema Pasi and I drove to Bugwere’s capital – Budaka – to check out the new labour suite at Budaka Health Centre IV. 

That’s a facility the President has, for donkey’s years, promised to elevate to a full hospital, but as usual…well…! Anyway, I’d heard about the new labour suite, freshly completed by the much-hyped Uganda People’s Defence Forces (UPDF) “Engineering Brigade”, which the President unilaterally – and unlawfully, I think – gave the preserve of constructing health and education facilities. 

We found a small structure, circa seven metres by five; incomplete and unimpressive. The fertility, the sheer fecundity of Bagwere chicks is legendary: they are the gift that keeps on giving! From 12 or 13 years onward, they give birth just about every year, so the maternity ward is busy. But they are also broad-based and altogether family size; so how on earth the government expects them to squeeze into that small thing beats me! I thought the “suite” should be pulled down and a proper facility put up. Motema Pasi didn’t agree, he declared it fit for chickens to lay eggs, an opinion aided in no small part by the sight of chickens nearby. But then again, Motema Pasi and I never agree on anything really; so I guess his opinion doesn’t count for much.

I felt like telling the Commander-in-Chief that I’m hard-pressed to understand how a whole “Engineering Brigade” travelled more than 200km to construct a small, dinghy excuse of a building and labelled it a labour suite when Motema Pasi thinks it, at very best, can only be considered for chickens to lay eggs.  But I couldn’t; we Bagwere are very, very shy!

And even then Motema Pasi said he was talking about these local breeds, the ones that make for tough cooking and even tougher eating…because he wagered serious exotic layers would not lay eggs in a place like this.

We then drove 8km to Lyama Sub-county Health Centre III, another site where the UPDF “Engineering Brigade”, all the way from Kampala had showcased their might by building a toilet. We had to look hard to see a toilet worthy of the much-hyped UPDF “Engineering Brigade”. 

Finally, we found a very small pit-latrine, four doors, with something which is either a urinal or an open bathroom at one end. Lousy! I’m certain the local boys, school dropouts who languish jobless in the trading centre could have done a much better job. But I can’t say such stuff…we Bagwere are very, very shy!

Then we drove to Naboa HCIII where the mighty UPDF, all the way from Kampala, had built a placenta pit. Commonplace! Same banality in Kameruka HCIII where they “repaired” one small staff house and Kerekerene HCIII where they erected what looks like a fence. But I can’t say much here…we Bagwere are very, very shy!
UPDF is eating the cake, but also scrambling for the crumbs that local contractors could have survived on; yet in performance, the soldiers are not showing cause why they should be a monopoly. I’d love to audit these projects and compare bills of quantities against final products. 

I’d have loved to tell the “Engineering Brigade” that Bagwere chicks don’t lay eggs; they give birth to babies and they need a labour suite, not a chicken pen. But I’ll stay quiet, because…we Bagwere are very, very shy!

Gawaya Tegulle is an advocate of the High Court of Uganda    

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