MPs opt out the UGX 337 Bn radio project.

By; Francis Lubega

12^th Nov. 2020

The capacity of a local company to manufacture radios for the long distance learning program is highly questionable and dubious.

This is according to the findings by Members of parliament on the Budget Committee following a field visit to Orion Electronics Limited in Namanve Industrial Park today for a fact finding mission on whether the company has technical capacity to produce 5m radio sets..

The committee is scrutinizing a request by the ministry of education to appropriate 336.8 billion shs to purchase 9 million radio sets for all homesteads in the country.

Members of the committee chaired by Amos Lugoloobi have been left not convinced by the justification put forward in support of the need to procure radios for the long distance learning programme noting that it was not prudent to spend the funds when schools could reopen in a few months from now.

The ministry intends to import 4 million radio sets which will be supplied by the end of this month while 5 million will be manufactured locally and delivered at the tail end of the exercise.

Charles Illukor the Kumi County MP says it is highly doubted that the company can even assemble even a single radio insisting that there is no need for a supplementary allocation for such a company for a national cause.

Ngabirano Charles the Rwampara County MP notes that there is no way the company can supply radios in a few months given the expertise they found at the plant and it owes them an explanation.