Luzira prison to be turned into Five Star Hotel
Plans are underway to find land on which a new prison will be built to replace Luzira Maximum Prison, which is expected to be turned into a luxurious 5-star hotel.
A letter from President Museveni dated July 2022 has been leaked, confirming the development.
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According to the letter from Museveni to Internal Affairs Minister Kahinda Otafiire, members from Tian Tang group, a Chinese investment agency have expressed serious interest in ensuring this development is done, albeit at their cost.
The group proposes to redevelop the prison into a five-star hotel with a state-of-the-art conference centre and will require the government to identify land where they can place the prison later.
“I support this idea,” Museveni said.
He therefore directed Otafiire to kickstart negotiations with the Tian Tang to execute the plan.
The government's relocation plans for the facility have been on since President Museveni assented to the Public Private Partnership Act (PPP) in 2016.
In the PPP arrangement, the government partners with private investors who provide finances to build infrastructure.
The finance ministry has also stated that through the PPP, they will be able to relocate both Luzira and Kigo prisons. Jim Mugunga, the ministry's spokesperson then said that relocating these prison facilities was one of the outstanding projects they were working on.
Meanwhile, prison authorities have in the past proposed the relocation of Luzira Prisons to Mukono District where it is expected to build a 10,000-inmate capacity detention centre to help decongest the prisons. Luzira Prisons, whose capacity is 1,700 inmates currently holds over 7,700 inmates.
In 2013, Members of Parliament on the Human Rights Committee rejected the government's plan to relocate Luzira Prisons under a swap deal with a private investor.
However, the Commissioner General of Prisons, Dr Johnson Byabashaija, was in favour of the project, noting that it would go a long way to solve the problem of congestion and use of dilapidated buildings in the prisons.
While still minister of Justice and Constitutional Affairs, Gen Kahinda Otafiire has proposed that Luzira prison and Butabika Hospital be relocated to locations outside Kampala so that they can accommodate the rising number of criminals and Mental patients.
Otafiire said that Luzira prison was meant to handle no more than 1,700 inmates but surprisingly, it currently holds over 7000 prisoners.
"Luzira was established when the criminal rate was still relatively low, but the crime rate is always increasing. We need another National prison elsewhere given that Luzira is too close to the city and cannot be expanded where it is, to accommodate the increasing number of inmates," Otafiire said.
