Nakawa-Naguru Estate fails to take off, 10 years later

By Athnus Faith

In October 2007, OpecPrime Properties signed a Public Private Partnership with the Government of Uganda for the construction of the Nakawa-Naguru satellite city. That was 10 years ago. Since then, of the 1,747 residential flats, less than 10 have been constructed. Residents were evicted in order to pave way for the project. The capacity of Opec-Prime to pull-off this project was questioned then, and only recently have they revealed that they will pull-out of the project. Part of the land has already been leased to the Aga Khan Development Network (AKDN) for the construction of teaching hospital.

In the initial plan, the evicted residents were to get low-cost houses and be considered first on any project. Well, out of frustration they petitioned the speaker of parliament over the stalled projects and requested for an investigation to be carried out.

It should be recalled that Government entered into a Public Private Partnership
(PPP) on October 5th 2007 with Opecprime Properties Limited, with Government availing 66 ares of land, while Opecprime Properties would come in as the contractor.

Opecprime Properties Uganda Limited (OPUL), a UK subsidiary firm of Comer Homes Group and the government of Uganda and the agreement was signed by Ministry of Local Government on behalf of the Ugandan Government.

In their glossy proposal, Opecprime Properties Uganda Limited promised to set up Uganda’s very first state of the art satellite city that comprised of 1,747 residential flats within the first 10 years.

The residents refused to vacate the estates but despite the protests, Government took the day and the tenants were evicted in 2011 from their dilapidated housing units, after being promised they would get preferential treatment upon completion of the housing units.

According to the agreement, Government was at free will to take over the land, if the contractor failed to live to his promises.

While presenting the petition, Mugume told Parliament that prior to the signing of the public-private partnership, they signed a Memorandum of Understanding with Government where the tenants in acceptance for the redevelopment and resettlement programs were acknowledged.

The contracting party undertook to constructing one 747 low cost affordable housing dedicated units for resettling the registered tenants of the Nakawa-Naguru Estates in 2006 in a timely manner and in any case, not later than four years from the signature date.

“The petitioners are aggrieved by the delay in the execution of the agreement on the part of the contracting party which has caused them distress as a result of failure to replace their homes which were demolished to pave way for the project,