The minister of State for Economic Monitoring, Peter Ogwang has vowed to continue with the arrest and detention of district engineers if they engage in acts of negligence, corruption and oversee poor quality of infrastructure.
Ogwang’s remarks came shortly after Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers (UIPE) decried the tough and continued arrests of their members at district and municipality levels by the minister during his locus visits.
The institution's president Eng. Ben Kyemba said in a statement that the actions of the minister could further affect the profession because these arrests are conducted in a manner that is demeaning, harsh and inhumane on allegations of shoddy or defective work without thorough investigations as required by law.
But in a statement, Ogwang challenged the institution to dispute his field findings which resulted in the arrest of some of these district engineers.
"It's a shame that a professional forum is the one condoning abuse of public funds. I am going to start from where I stopped. Engineers are not doctors who can bury their mistakes; they will be glaringly erected for all to see their bad workmanship," he said.
The minister explained that his work is to raise a red flag, adding that the fair hearing is the work of police because he can't determine the amount of sand and cement that they mixed.
"My preliminary investigations are the site spot checks. What meets the eyes determines the next course of action. Once there is an alert then police conduct an extensive investigation. It's fair, systematic and within the confines of the law, ”he said.
UIPE called on the government and other stakeholders to involve the institution when carrying out detailed technical assessment or investigation to determine the cause of poor workmanship or alleged inflated cost of projects, or any related corrupt practices before subjecting the officers to embarrassing treatment.
