Of late, a number of real estate developers have taken on a habit of building storeyed buildings most especially around the Kampala Metropolitan Area in order to save on costs of the bills of quantity in comparison to a complete concrete building.
Most finished apartments and other commercial property around the areas of Kira Municipality, Nansana Municipality and Kampala Capital City have been constructed using the above method and materials.
Nonetheless, the government of Uganda through legal notice No.11 dated 23rd September, 2022 issued “The Building Control ( Prohibition of Steel-Timber Concrete Composite Building Method) Notice, 2022 under section 42 of the Building Control Act,2013.
In the legal notice, the ministry of Works and Transport outlawed the use of Steel- Timber concrete Composite building method for not being safe and is prohibited in any building operation.
However, a survey on construction sites indicates a laxity by the physical planning committees of the local authorities as a number of buildings of the prohibited method are continuing to be put up.
These developers target mostly customers who want to purchase finished property and those in the diaspora.
The Board in charge of supervision of such buildings need to help avert a catastrophe that might occur in the years to come. We need to get a preventive measure in case of disaster or strong earthquake like the one that happened in Turkey of recent.
It’s about our future and not about quick return on investment by the real estate developers.
My only observation is that such buildings if not supervised by a highly experienced group of professionals, they might not even last ten years and can easily cause unprecedented consequences to the owners and as such, I call upon the physical planning department to wake up and implement the minister’s directives.
