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Akii-Bua Memorial Stadium: MPs write letter to Museveni
No progress: The Akii-Bua stadium as it looked last year. There has hardly been significant progress since. Photo By M. Muziransa
What you need to know:
- In August, Hon. Obua told Parliament, as they congratulated the team that returned from the Commonwealth Games with five medals, of the fate of this stadium that previously sat on land that belonged to Lira Referral Hospital.
Kampala. Ajuri County Member of Parliament (MP) Denis Hamson Obua and his counterpart from Kwania County Tonny Ayoo requested President Yoweri Museveni to prompt a public progressive report on the construction of Akii-Bua Memorial Stadium in Lira.
In a letter written on October 23, the MPs reminded the President that over Shs600m has been remitted since the financial year 2016/17 towards this project that received his blessings at a closing ceremony of the 2012 Lango Conference in Lira.
“Lira District Local Government subsequently donated 12 hectares of land at Erute County to Central Government through Ministry of Education and Sports for the above stadium construction,” read part of the letter.
“… so far over Shs600m has been sepent and yet what is on ground is a terrace (pavilion) and a pit latrine as seen in the attached photo,” it continued.
The letter copied to the Lira LC V Chairperson and the aforementioned ministry, also demanded “a forensic audit be conducted by the Auditor General on the value of money so far spent” and that a “project plan highlighting when the stadium construction is expected to be finalized be availed.”
Obua explained that they specifically petitioned the President because “he is in the know about this project which is part of the Lango Agenda for Development presented to him in 2012.”
“Besides, all the other projects like construction of Lira University are ongoing. Akii-Bua is ongoing too but because of the slow pace and what we see on ground, we are sceptical that in a way these funds could be subject of abuse.
“The explanation of the local government is that the Shs600m is delegated funding from the ministry so it comes with conditions. Our take is that the ministry could have come on ground to maybe sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the local government to have this work done,” Obua explained.
Lira chairman (LCV) Alex Oremo, confirmed receipt of the Shs600m but in bits.
“We first got Shs400m to open up the land; build roads, clear the land and so on. Then the next disbursement was over Shs100m which we used to put up a small structure, plant the pasture,” Oremo told Daily Monitor.
“The funds we got are not adequate for construction. If you look at Mandela National Stadium, billions of shillings (US$36m or Shs136.8bn) were used to construct it.
In fact on my part I am happy that the MPs want this investigation because we need everyone to understand that a lot of money is needed to finish this project,” Oremo added.
First petition
In August, Hon. Obua told Parliament, as they congratulated the team that returned from the Commonwealth Games with five medals, of the fate of this stadium that previously sat on land that belonged to Lira Referral Hospital.
“The hospital has reclaimed their land… When will the construction of this stadium be fast-tracked because the history of our sports is incomplete without John Akii-Bua who won our first Olympic gold medal (in Munich 1972),” Obua said then.
In one of his prayers to the House, Obua urged government to repeal the 1954 Sports Act, which he termed obsolete and old fashioned. He gave a month’s ultimatum to government to table these propositions after which he would seek leave Parliament to table a private member’s bill on the same.
“In terms of fast-tracking projects like stadium construction, the law provides a legal framework that we could start with,” Obua told Daily Monitor yesterday. But also so many things have changed in sports funding over the last 50 years. For example while we are now looking at government only, a better law would give us an opportunity to bring the private sector on board (for more funding),” Obua added.
