Uganda’s real estate developer, Hamis Kiggundu aka Ham Kiggundu has thrown tantrums whenever the issue of the delay on his part to deliver the upgrade of the country’s oldest Nakivubo stadium, arises. He would he,himself get up and fight or fight through proxies.
Kiggundu’s anger can be clearly understood for a man in his situation. He has taken long to deliver what he keeps touting is going to be a world class pitch. He was supposed to complete the job by the year 2019. He is now in default of the deadlines by three years, and still counting. Before Covid 19 paid a visit and turned into a perfect excuse for Ham to use to explain away the contractual breaches, he was blaming the delay on the magnitude of the job at hand and the need to do it perfectly as well his detractors.
Possibly looking to divert public attention away from the real issue which is the the delays in completion of the stadia, Ham would weigh in with the defence of patriotism. Ham calls himself a patriotic man who is workinghard to give the country a better stadium. And then, calls unpatriotic, those telling him to respect the requisite deadlines.
Ham says Covid 19 worsened the delays because Roko had laid off some of it’s workers. Yet, we all saw and witnessed Ham as he was building his shopping malls around the facility at break-neck speed, even as the Corona Virus was occassioning massive problems. Let’s agree for the sake of it that it’s actually Corona which caused the delays.
But even so, Corona had not raided Uganda previously, say, when Ham was meant to deliver the stadium but failed. Ham says Ugandans should render him support because he is building stadia for them. Ugandans did that already by giving him public land in exchange for building the pitch which he hasn’t done within several deadlines.
Ham is benefitting from the massive shopping malls he has finished already and is scheduled to earn more from the others in exchange for the stadia which he hasn’t delivered. I respectfully think that reminding one to meet their contractual obligations isn’t the same as being unpatriotic. This is exactly what responsible citizens are supposed to do.
Since the President, and or his wife in charge of the sector, aren’t tasking Ham to respect the deadlines of delivering the stadia, Ugandans such as Dixon Bond Okello and Aldrine Nsubuga deserve the right to raise concerns, after all, they are citizens and are fully aware that the businessman was handed public land to upgrade the stadia which is far from completion.
The last time he was explaining himself over the delay which has been very recently, Ham was lamenting about the shooting up of the budget he is supposed to use to the deliver the job. True, the budget is quite huge but the same has been occassioned by the failure to meet the deadlines and counting. Ham deserves cheers for undertaking to finish the job against all odds but the same should be done without too much delay.
Alternatively, he can officially exploit the issue of Covid-19 to legally ask for the readjusting of the deadline in which he was supposed to deliver the job so as to escape being faulted for the natural occurrence which was admittedly beyond his control as a human being. Short of that, anyone can still question his failure to complete the sports facility within the requisite deadlines which fell in 2019.
All in all, Ham should be thankful for being reminded to deliver his bargain of the deal between him and Ugandans seeing that he himself is a lawyer and knows the implications of breach of contracts. After all, no one has come up to take him to the courts over the breaches but those raising the concerns are doing so verbally and writing.
Author Profile
- Mr. Stephen Kasozi Muwambi is a seasoned crime investigative writer, majoring in judicial-based stories. His two decades’ experience as a senior investigative journalist has made him one of the best to reckon on in Uganda. He can also be reached via [email protected]
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