ARUA POLICE ARRESTS CONTRACTOR OVER ALLEGED SABOTAGE OF GOVERNMENT PROGRAMS

By Dramadri Federick

Arua City

The Police at Arua central police station on the morning of Friday January 24, 2025, arrested the Chief Executive Officer Development Infrastructure (U) Limited Sunday Etrima, over alleged sabotage of government projects.

The project of constructing the regional blood bank that awarded to Development Infrastructure (U) Limited at a cost of Shs4.9 billion in 2022 for a period of 12 months which ended in 2023, however the contractor is still struggling with finishes, compound designing and other minor works yet the contract extensions have surpassed the three times mandatory as per the Public Procurement and Dispersal of Assets Act.

Meanwhile on the March 18, 2024, Ministry of Health also awarded an additional contract MOH-UgIFT/WRKS/23-24/00010 for the construction of Staff Accommodation, Ramp and Access road to the same company to the tune of Shs1.07 billion expected to end on March 17, 2025 with the project at now 75% completion.    

However stakeholders in various site meetings have been raising concerns over delayed execution of works by the contractor, failure to deploy adequate workers, failure to provide building plans among others that have featured in several meetings with no actions taken by the contractor.

This prompted Kumakech Salim the Arua Resident City Commissioner (RCC) to order for the arrest of Etrima Sunday for further interrogations. “This is a sabotage of government programs, this is a sabotage to the people of West Nile Region, this is an abuse to the people of Arua city and the decision we have taken is to prosecute him (Sunday Etrima) so that it sends a warning, even government gave him Shs300 million.”

Several technical members raised concerns about the working relations of the contractor.

Eldard Tugumisirize the Clerk of Works who supervises the contractor on behalf of Ministry of Health reveals that several areas of concern raised to the contractor have not been honored and addressed including failure to align the road the bridge, provide an approved building plan for the blood bank, deploy adequate workers among others.

He further stressed that the contractor is arrogant to the extent that he feels bigger and doesn’t respect the views of those supervising him as he comes from West Nile region.

“Sunday doesn’t listen and take instructions seriously, even the current blood bank is leaking from the roof, he must be compelled to subcontract this project otherwise we shall not achieve this project with the March 2025 deadline as per the contract and yet World Bank projects are ending by June this year.”

David Asizua the LC 1 chairman Hospital cell says several times he passes around the facility, he has never seen workers on site for the past three months and asked the Resident City Commissioner to deploy security officers to monitor the contractor.

Joel Avaga the Building control officer Arua city confirms that Development Infrastructure (U) Limited has not paid for the building plan approval for the last three years since 2022. 

Sunday Etrima who was released three hours after his detention from Arua Central Police Station on bond after he committed to deploy workers and comply with other demands of the technical committee to ensure the project is delivered says his company, has not defaulted in anyway in the execution of the projects.

“It was really very unfortunate that I was summoned by police that I was sabotaging government project, I have not sabotaged projects, we have not delayed works, there’s no shoddy work done in that site, we are determined to complete these projects on time.”

Development Infrastructure has signed several contracts with various local governments over the years with majority failing to be delivered within the stipulated time frame.