Several experts and stakeholders have expressed doubt over the proposal to relocate Luzira Maximum Security Prison and build in its place a five-star hotel, with many fearing that the project could face similar fate like the Lubowa Specialised Hospital project.
The Minister of Internal Affairs, Gen (Rtd) Kahinda Otafiire has invited different stakeholders, including Prime Minister Robinah Nabbanja, for a meeting on March 6, 2024, to discuss the proposal on the directive of President Museveni.
The President had in a letter dated July 10, 2022 directed Gen Otafiire to start negotiations with Tian Tang Group owned by a Chinese Investor and former police officer, Mr. Zhang Zhigang, to relocate Luzira Prisons.
According to Mr Museveni, the investor is willing to relocate the prison to another place within Uganda at their cost. The government will acquire 640 acres of land in Buikwe District where the prisons will be relocated.
But Mr Peter Walubiri Mukidi, a constitutional lawyer, wonders why the deal is not considered through a competitive bidding process and fears that such backdoors deals have backfired before.
“If there was a need to relocate this prison, it would be a competitive bid announced internationally but why did Mr Museveni choose to seal it back-door? Remember we’re talking about prime land in Luzira. I sense an element of graft and stealing of national assets,” he said.
This comes nearly four years after Parliament approved a government loan of $379 million (about Shs1.4 trillion at the time) for the construction of a 264 bed capacity specialised hospital in Lubowa, located along Kampala-Entebbe highway.
Government has since spent more than Shs350 billion on the project which was initially contracted out to ROKO Construction Company before it pulled out under unclear circumstances.
The project was supposed to be financed under a Public Private Partnership loan together with an Italian investor, Ms Enrica Pinetti, who remains elusive to-date.
But the status of the project has remained shrouded in mystery. Site security at what goes for the Lubowa project is currently manned by soldiers and police personnel. Several warning notices are also pinned against the perimeter wall, prohibiting the taking of photographs in and around the premises.
Mr Walubiri also said the planned relocation of Luzira prison, “will increase the cost of transporting prisoners, especially those with capital offences. Remember most of the big courts are here in the city, so it will also cost them in terms of time where one might reach here at 2pm and return at midnight. It disorganizes the movement of prisoners.”
Luzira, which is situated in Nakawa Division some 10 kilometers south-east of Kampala, is the country’s oldest maximum-security prison with a designated capacity of 1,700 inmates but often holds close to 8,000 prisoners and sits on 276.52 acres of land.
In the same vein, Mr Eron Kiiza, a human rights lawyer, said relocating people to Buikwe will be a big inconvenience to poor inmates and political prisoners will be particularly hurt.
“It will heighten the cost and inconvenience of public and lawyers’ access to their relatives, friends or clients detained in a distant Buikwe District. It is already hard to visit inmates in Kigo and Kitalya,” Mr Kiiza said.
A Chinese ex-police officer, Mr. Zhang Zhigang, established Tian Tang Group in 2006. The firm’s website indicates they have since expanded into eight businesses, including industrial park development, real estate, hotels, manufacturing, machinery business, travel services, mineral development, and security services.
They also own the Sino Mbale Industrial Park in eastern Uganda, and are also engaged in park construction in Namanve Industrial Park, and Tian Tang Industrial Park at Mbalala in Mukono District.
But Uganda Prisons Service Commissioner General Johnson Byabashaija welcomed the plan.
“That land in Luzira is too prime to remain a prison in 2024 and beyond,” he said.
In his letter, Gen Otafiire said the Uganda Prisons Service had already identified 3.5 square miles [2,240 acres] in Buikwe District out of which they have agreed to buy one square mile [640 acres] for the said relocation.
“In light of the current legal impasse on processing Letters of Administration for the old Buganda estates, the family lawyers have formed an opinion that they (beneficiaries can still sell their interest in the said land to the Uganda Prisons Service for the Prisons relocation,” he said.
But the executive director of the Human Rights Defenders Association (HURIDA), Mr Gideon Tugume, said the move is good since it will decongest the prisons.
“Right now Luzira Prison is a torture place in terms of numbers. The place is highly congested and if they can replace it and construct a much larger and efficient prison, it will be good. We are only concerned with how land is given out to the so-called investors under unclear circumstances, otherwise, the move is okay,” he said.