By Richard Onapatum
Government through the Ministry of Education and Sports has commenced the construction of a Sh946m Seed secondary school in Usuk County, Katakwi District.
Katakwi district authorities led by the Vice President and also Woman MP Maj.Rtd Jessica Alupo yesterday handed over the construction of Okulonyo Seed Secondary school in Okocho village, Okulonyo Sub County, to the contractor Tona Uganda Limited.
The Vice president revealed that the 16 acres project land was offered by Hon. Bosco Okiror, the MP for Usuk County in Okocho parish.
In the first phase, the school will have 4 classroom blocks, staff houses, administration block and pit latrines among other facilities. It will be constructed in six months.
Alupo assured the people of Katakwi and Ugandans at large that Government is really indebted to serving and bringing services to them.
She emphasized that government has made it a policy to continue in a phased way to establish a seed secondary school in every sub county a primary school in every parish across the country.
Available data reveals that there are presently 1,617 parishes without a public primary school and 350 sub-counties without a secondary school.
She appealed to residents to monitoring the construction works to ensure value for money.
She thanked the people who turned up in big numbers for the groundbreaking ceremony for getting back to their ancestral land since government has caused peace in the border sub counties and districts.
The vice president asked communities willing to work with the Contractor to display good behaviour so that they can earn a living from it and uplift their family income.
The vice president also appealed to the district council to pass a resolution that prevents people from degrading the environment especially through burning bushes as it kills soil fertility.
The same engineer is the one that drew the architect for soroti university, this also gives us hope since he has been doing good work and delivering in time.
She urged parents to let children go to school now that they have Epel memorial Institute which is now taking in students.
“We currently have two technical schools one in Usuk county and the other in Ngariam county, katakwi technical school. Let all children go to school, whether disabled, girl or boy child, so that they can get jobs that can sustain their families.” Alupo appealed.
She told the gathering that Marriage will be after graduation.
The woman MP also advised communities to get ready for the planting season. “You should not sit and wait for rains and wake up to plant when not planned. Please plan in advance that’s when you’ll get good yields ” she said.
She pledged to ask the president to construct a brigade in okulonyo as it was first proposed.
She asked cattle keepers to always take care of their animals not to be left at the swamp leading to thefts.
Animal is a reason as to why our children go to school so keep them safe she advised.
Hon. Okiror who offered the land for the school project asked the contractor to follow the Bills of Quantities and appealed to all stakeholders to do the respective roles while implementing the project.
He appealed to the contractor to deliver good works and urged the community to secure the land.
The RDC Katakwi district Maj. Godfrey Katamba said this financial year katakwi has got funding for the two seed schools of Okulonyo and Okore seed schools and government through the vice president for extending services to the people.
The groundbreaking ceremony was attended by district authorities and security chiefs of the region.