The contractors; Absolomon Water Drilling Company Limited and Emukule Martin Okadapao Company were hired by the Nairobi-based �African Regional Headquarters of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to undertake infrastructural development at the cemetery.
Tororo Municipal Council has suspended rehabilitation works at the Commonwealth Memorial War Graves in protest of the manner in which contractors for the task were acquired without consent of the authorities.
The contractors; Absolomon Water Drilling Company Limited and Emukule Martin Okadapao Company were hired by the Nairobi-based ‘African Regional Headquarters of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission to undertake infrastructural development at the cemetery.
The works involved sinking a borehole, renovating and expanding an existing store meant to pump water to preserve horticultural installations and installing a 3-phase power line, a 25 KVA transformer to serve the cemetery and communities living around it.
But Joseph Ssebude, the Municipality Town Clerk complained that the contractors have not sought for explicit permission from the council authority to do their work. He explains that the council was not informed about the renovation; neither did it approve the infrastructural development at the site.
Ssebude has accordingly written to Joseph Munene, the Director of the supervising contractor; Summit Enterprise Limited to ensure that all the work at the cemetery is suspended pending advice from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, under whose mandate, the Commonwealth Memorial War Graves fall.
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On Monday, the Municipal law enforcement officers stormed the memorial war grave site and confiscated all materials and equipment that were being used at the site.
Martin Emukule Okadapao, whose company was contracted for electrical installation at the site, has protested the council\'s action. He claims that Ssoli Guloba, the Assistant Town Clerk and the Physical Planning Unit endorsed their work long before it started.
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Joseph Munene, from Summit Enterprise Limited, a firm supervising the contract work says an official from the Commonwealth war grave commission in Nairobi is expected to arrive in the country today to expeditiously handle the matter.
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The council\'s action has irritated communities living around the Commonwealth memorial war grave who have accordingly petitioned the Town Clerk to rescind his decision and allow the work to continue.
David Ofwono, one of the residents complained that the sanctity of the dead at the site is not handled well. He says that the cemetery has been turned into rented farmland and grazing ground for personal gain by some council staff.
Ofwono says waste material potentially harmful to public health are carelessly littered everywhere around the memorial graves without proper incineration. He argues that the on-going work would improve the situation.
The Commonwealth Graves Commission (CWGC) is an intergovernmental organization of six independent member states; UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, India and South Africa, established through Royal Charter to mark, record and maintain the graves and places of commemoration of Commonwealth Nations military forces killed during the two World Wars.
The Commission is responsible for the commemoration of 1.7 million Commonwealth servicemen and women in 150 countries worldwide.
In Uganda, the memorial war graves are in Tororo, Jinja, Kampala, Mbarara, Mbale, Fort portal, Masaka and Entebbe.