An exclusive expose dubbed “Statement on Responsibility for the Change in Alignment of the Busega–Mpigi Expressway” lays bare a bitter internal dispute in which senior engineers Isaac Wani and Patrick Muleme point fingers at each other over who authorised the controversial route change that helped push the cost of the project from about Shs547 billion to more than Shs1.3 trillion.
Chaos is deepening at the Ministry of Works and Transport as senior engineers caught in the Busega–Mpigi Expressway controversy retreat into a blame game over one of the most consequential decisions in Uganda’s road construction history — the change of the original road alignment.
At the centre of the dispute are Eng. Isaac Wani, the former Director Network Planning and Engineering (DNPE), and Eng. Patrick Muleme, the former Head of Design.
A document obtained by TheInvestigator, titled “Statement on Responsibility for the Change in Alignment of the Busega–Mpigi Expressway,” provides a detailed chronology of how the original alignment developed under Gauff consultants was allegedly replaced, how the new route entered the implementation process and why questions have now emerged over who authorised the change.
The statement is authored from Wani’s perspective and is effectively his defence against attempts to attach responsibility to his office.
Its central argument is blunt: Wani says the new alignment had already emerged from the Design Department under Muleme before it formally reached him in September and October 2017.
He argues that by the time he signed a memorandum forwarding Muleme’s technical submission, the decision to depart from the original Gauff alignment had already been made.
“The critical question is therefore not whether I signed a memorandum in October 2017, but who made the decision to change the alignment between January and September 2017, and the motives,” Wani states in the document. That assertion is likely to become a central issue in the ongoing investigations into the project.
The original road
The Busega–Mpigi Expressway was not born in the corridors of the Ministry of Works. According to Wani’s statement, the original alignment was developed under Gauff consultancy, whose assignment began in 2010 and covered the feasibility study and detailed engineering design.
Wani says he became Director Network Planning and Engineering in October 2015, by which time “the fundamental alignment and design had already been developed.”
The Directorate he headed consisted of seven specialised departments, including Design, Research and Development, Network Planning, Survey and Documentation, Environmental and Social Safeguards, Quality Control and Project Formulation.
The Design Department was headed by Muleme. Wani’s statement specifically places Muleme at the centre of the technical design process, saying the Design Department had “direct technical responsibility for engineering design and custody of the approved realignment.”
It also says Muleme had been involved in the Gauff design process before Wani became DNPE and therefore had substantial institutional memory of the project and its engineering development. This history is important because it establishes that the two engineers were not outsiders to the project. Muleme was involved in the original design, while Wani occupied a senior coordinating and oversight position within the engineering directorate. But the crucial question is what happened after the original design was completed.
January 2017: The last trace of the original alignment
The documentary trail supplied to The Investigator points to January 19, 2017 as an important date. According to Wani, his office was still directing the completion of valuation and strip-map documentation based on the original Gauff alignment on that date.
An annex in the dossier describes Wani’s January 19 communication as the last documented action through his office before information about a different alignment subsequently emerged.
This chronology creates the first major puzzle. If the original alignment was still being used in January 2017, when exactly was it abandoned?
Wani says the change occurred sometime between January 19 and September 13, 2017. By September, the Land Acquisition Department had received information that a new alignment existed. And the new route was not a minor adjustment. According to Wani, the Land Acquisition Department described it as an alignment “entirely different” from the one on which its ongoing valuation and compensation work was based. A September 13, 2017 memorandum from Acting Head of Land Acquisition William Matovu confirms that the department had received “unconfirmed information” about a new alignment and wanted clarification before proceeding with verification and compensation.
The memo specifically asked for confirmation of the “re-alignment for Section II (Busega–Mpigi).” That correspondence is potentially critical because it shows that the land acquisition team was already working on the basis of the original corridor when news of another route reached it.
In other words, the alignment change was not simply a routine technical adjustment quietly incorporated into the project. It had consequences for land acquisition, valuation and compensation.
Muleme’s department enters the picture
The September 13 memorandum did not simply accept the information. Matovu sought formal clarification from the Head of Design — Muleme.
According to Wani’s statement, Muleme subsequently prepared the response dated October 13, 2017, transmitting what were described as updated layout plans, profiles and right-of-way coordinates.
The dossier contains an explanatory note identifying the October 13 memorandum as Muleme’s response to the clarification sought by Land Acquisition.
It says the memorandum transmitted updated layout plans, profiles and right-of-way coordinates. But it also raises a major concern: the submission did not expressly state that the documents represented a complete replacement of the original Gauff corridor.
Nor, according to the explanatory note, did it identify the approval process through which the new alignment had been selected or spell out its implications for design, land acquisition, project scope or cost.
This is where the dispute becomes explosive. Wani says that the October memorandum was presented to his office as an “update” of technical information.
He argues that the terminology obscured the magnitude of what had actually happened. “Had the memo expressly informed me that the original Gauff alignment was being abandoned and replaced with a completely new corridor, together with the resulting implications for the design, land acquisition, safeguards, contract and project cost, the matter would necessarily have required consideration at a fundamentally different treatment and approval by the accounting officer,” Wani says.
That defence goes to the heart of Wani’s position. He is not denying that his office handled the October 2017 correspondence. Instead, he is disputing that his signature amounted to approval of the underlying decision to replace the alignment.
“My signature did not constitute approval” Wani anticipates the obvious accusation: if he signed and forwarded the October memorandum, did he not thereby approve the new route?
His answer is no. He argues that his position as DNPE involved leadership, coordination and technical oversight across seven specialised departments.
According to him, technical submissions originated from specialised departments and were subject to varying levels of review depending on their technical nature.
He says a director responsible for multiple engineering disciplines could not reasonably be expected to independently reproduce or verify every engineering calculation, survey coordinate, drawing or environmental assessment generated by specialist departments.
“Primary data in form of a set of layout plans, profiles and coordinates does not, by itself, necessarily disclose to a reviewing Director who did not participate in their development that what is described as an ‘update’ actually represents the substitution of an entirely different corridor,” Wani argues.
His reliance, he adds, was particularly reasonable because Muleme had been involved in the project from the Gauff design process and had institutional memory stretching several years before Wani’s appointment as DNPE.
That, Wani argues, made Muleme the person with the technical history necessary to explain whether the new plans were an adjustment or an entirely new alignment.
So, who changed the road?
Wani’s answer is contained in a section of his statement carrying the question as its heading: “Who changed the alignment.”
He says available project records identify the Design Department, under Muleme, as the technical source from which the new alignment emerged.
“As Head Design, Eng. Patrick Muleme was the custodian of the approved engineering alignment, possessed the institutional history of the Gauff design dating back to 2010, and was the officer responsible for preparing and transmitting the revised layout plans, profiles and coordinates,” Wani states.
Wani further claims that an internal audit review later established that the changed alignment was not supported by documented engineering analysis or technical assessment before its adoption. This is perhaps the most damaging assertion in the entire dossier.
If confirmed independently, it would mean the change was not merely an engineering decision whose cost implications later became apparent, but a decision whose documentary technical basis was itself questioned. Yet the dossier stops short of establishing the motive.
Indeed, Wani is careful to say that he cannot state what motivated Muleme to develop and communicate the new alignment. “I cannot state what motivated the Head Design to develop and communicate the new alignment in this manner, and I do not wish to attribute a motive that the records do not prove,” he says.
That distinction is important. The documents establish a chronology and assign technical responsibility from Wani’s perspective. They do not, by themselves, prove that Muleme acted corruptly or that he personally benefited from the route change.
The compensation question
The alignment dispute becomes even more significant when viewed alongside land acquisition.
The Land Acquisition Department was preparing verification and compensation payments based on the original route. The September 13 memo from Matovu says the valuation report was awaiting approval by the Chief Government Valuer and that the department needed to know whether a new alignment existed so it could harmonise its work plan.
The dossier also contains earlier correspondence from the Ministry of Lands raising problems with the valuation and strip map.
Among the issues identified were mismatched chainages, inconsistent rates per square metre, missing information about land interests, incorrect built-up areas, missing acreages and structures absent from the strip map.
The Ministry of Lands directed that the consultant make corrections and resubmit the final report. This matters because a change of alignment can fundamentally alter the population of Project Affected Persons, the land parcels affected and the compensation bill.
It can also force a project to redo engineering designs, surveys, environmental assessments, valuations and land acquisition. That is precisely what happened to Busega–Mpigi, according to subsequent government and parliamentary scrutiny.
From Shs547 billion to Shs1.3 trillion
Wani’s statement says the original civil works contract was approximately Shs547 billion. He insists that his office did not administer the civil works contract, certify payments or determine how the original contract sum was expended. Those functions, he says, rested with the Directorate of Roads and Bridges Development after contract signing.
The financial picture, however, subsequently became dramatically different.
Parliament and government have since scrutinised how a project initially estimated at roughly Shs600 billion could rise to about Shs1.3 trillion, with the Works Ministry warning that the final cost could reach approximately Shs2 trillion. The ministry has attributed the escalation to factors including design changes, land acquisition, funding interruptions and other project-management challenges. Works Minister Fred Byamukama has publicly acknowledged the magnitude of the problem.
Appearing before Parliament, he said government had embarked on reforms to stop similar failures and that no road contract should be signed without substantial acquisition of the right of way. “We have agreed that no road contract will be signed unless at least 50 per cent of the required right of way has been acquired,” Byamukama said, adding that President Museveni had directed that the threshold should rise to 75 per cent.
The minister has also pointed to irregular payment practices and weak contract management as factors that suffocate contractors and delay projects.
The parliamentary reckoning
The alignment dispute has now moved beyond internal ministry correspondence. Parliament has questioned how the road ended up in its present state. During parliamentary debate, MPs recalled that the original design envisaged significant swamp sections and that the project had been presented to Parliament on the basis of a particular engineering solution.
One parliamentary record states that Muleme had presented a full design to legislators, after which the committee debated the project and its cost. The debate later turned to the fact that the design had changed and that the contractor’s implemented design did not contain some of the connections that had been discussed.
This raises a fundamental accountability question: if Parliament approved one project on the basis of a particular design and alignment, under what authority was a substantially different corridor subsequently adopted? That question is precisely what Wani’s statement seeks to answer.
The Wani defence versus the Muleme responsibility
Wani’s document effectively constructs a chain of responsibility. His argument is that: Gauff developed the original alignment. Muleme’s Design Department had custody of the engineering design and institutional memory of the project. The original alignment remained the basis for land acquisition as late as January 2017.
A new alignment emerged sometime between January and September 2017. The Land Acquisition Department discovered the change and sought clarification on September 13, 2017.
Muleme responded on October 13, 2017 with revised plans, profiles and coordinates. Wani then signed or forwarded the documentation but says his signature should not be interpreted as approval of the underlying change.
The attached dossier therefore portrays Muleme’s Design Department as the technical point from which the new alignment emerged, while portraying Wani as the senior official who inherited and transmitted a decision that had already been made.
Muleme’s own October 13 memorandum is referenced in the dossier, but the attached copy contains an explanatory note rather than the full body of his response. The material available therefore does not permit The Investigator to reproduce a complete direct quotation from Muleme’s memorandum.
What the dossier does record is Wani’s assertion that Muleme “has never denied this and consistently defended this decision and position” during subsequent inquiries.
That position is significant because it suggests the dispute is not over whether Muleme was involved in the revised alignment, but over the authority, justification and consequences of the decision.
The President’s intervention
The controversy eventually reached the highest level of government. President Yoweri Museveni ordered investigations into the Busega–Mpigi project after questioning how the original African Development Bank financing could have been exhausted while only part of the road had been completed. He accused engineers of changing the route and creating new compensation obligations.
The President directed investigations into engineers including Muleme, alongside other officials, and ordered suspended Works Ministry Permanent Secretary Waiswa Bageya to step aside during the investigations. By July 2026, the controversy had escalated further.
Byamukama told Parliament that Museveni had dismissed six engineers connected to major road projects, including Busega–Mpigi.
“As I was leaving my office this morning, I saw a letter from the President sacking six engineers, including a few I am seeing on this front bench here. Sacking them, not even interdicting. They should go,” Byamukama told MPs.
Muleme was among the officials named in the investigations, while Wani was also subsequently identified among engineers dismissed in the wider shake-up.
What remains unanswered?
The most important unanswered question is not simply who signed the October 2017 memorandum. It is who made the decision to abandon the original Gauff alignment, on what technical basis, under whose authority and with what knowledge of the financial consequences.
The second question is whether management was adequately informed that the revised plans amounted to a fundamental replacement of the original corridor.
The third is whether the changed route triggered additional land acquisition and compensation that could have been avoided had the original corridor remained intact.
And finally, there is the question of accountability. Wani’s statement is clearly designed to place the technical origin of the change in the Design Department under Muleme, while separating the DNPE office from the decision itself.
Muleme’s position, as reflected indirectly in the dossier, appears to have remained a defence of the technical decision.
The investigations will therefore have to go beyond signatures and establish the full documentary chain: who proposed the new corridor, who reviewed it, who approved it, who informed the accounting officer, who authorised the resulting changes to land acquisition and who accepted the financial consequences.
The Busega–Mpigi Expressway was supposed to be a flagship piece of infrastructure to decongest the Kampala–Masaka corridor.
Instead, its alignment has become the fault line along which accountability is now being fought.
And as the billions of shillings attached to that decision continue to haunt the Works Ministry, the Wani–Muleme correspondence may prove crucial in answering the question that Parliament, investigators and Ugandan taxpayers are now asking:
Who changed the road?
Author Profile
- Charles Gazza Kodili is a seasoned journalist with over 20 years of experience in the media industry. He holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Mass Communication. He’s currently the Chief Editor at the Investigator.
Charles can also be reached via; Tel: +256 774 108978
Email: [email protected]
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