The state minister for housing,Dr. Chris Baryomunsi ,has threatened to raze down buildings that did not follow the construction plans and seek expert counsel for adjustments.
His comments come weeks after a building collapsed and killed builders on a site in Kansanga.
Baryomunsi said that government is committed in strengthening supervision to prevent otherwise avoidable incidents more especially in urban areas.
He made the remarks while appearing on one of the local television stations.
“One of the challenges we have faced in the distribution of food in Kampala is the poor housing infrastructure.In some of these areas vehicles and motorcycles can’t access deep inside the slums. Even if you want to use wheel burrow, you can’t,” he said.
Baryomunsi explained that most of people in urban areas are constructing houses which are not based on the approved physical plan which is a very big challenge.
He said such people won’t be spared and their structures will be destroyed without hesitation. Baryomunsi also noted that government is mobilisation resources to turn the slums into modern decent housing infrastructure in near by future.
“There are different measures we are trying to pursue but also recently through National Housing and Construction Company ,we tried to do modern housing in Kasokoso area but there were challenges of sensitising the local people and political influence,” he said.
He said the intention of the National Housing was to construct affordable modern decent structures and give to the people who are living in Kasokoso to occupy those houses.
“As ministry we have drawn plans on how we can convert these slums into decent structures, the challenge has been funding for these programmes, we are still mobilising resources from government and other partners to see how we can tackle this challenge of poor housing infrastructure in Kampala and other urban areas,”said Baryomunsi.
Baryomunsi said there are many challenges associated to poor building which include eruption of diarrheal diseases among others suggesting that government should be involved in building affordable accommodation for it’s citizens.
“We have left the provision of housing services to private sectors but again we must engage in social housing because you find there are vulnerable members of the society who may not have ability to put up decent houses ,definitely government knows that housing is important but we have a small envelope as a country,”he said.
He explained that houses in urban areas are expensive because it has been left to private companies that have been borrowing money from the commercial banks at high interest rates.