Seyani Brothers on the spot over leaking roof at Entebbe Airport

KAMPALA: Seyani Brothers, the company contracted to rehabilitate the Entebbe International Airport passenger terminal is back in the spotlight following incidents of mini-floods due to a leaking roof.

Videos making rounds show one of the newly worked one passenger terminal building by Seyani Brothers with water on floor following torrential rains.

Seyani was contracted to work on the airport passenger terminal to a tune of sh42b.

According to the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority, the landside expansion by M/s Seyani Brothers (U) Ltd sought to provide more room and comfort for service users, especially passengers.

On completion, the project was expected to deliver a new Arrivals and Departure block. Unfortunately, the classy building is leaking.

The existing Passenger Terminal building was opened in 1974 for peak hour traffic of 250 arriving and 250 departing passengers. The Terminal got some limited improvements as the country prepared for the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting (CHOGM) in 2007, elevating it to the current capacity of 410 arriving and 360 departing passengers.

The Master Plan projects 930 arriving passengers and 820 departing passengers during peak hours, by 2033. Just last year, Parliament’s Committee on Commissions, Statutory Authorities and State Enterprises (Cosase) discovered alterations in Seyani Brothers’ bid to upgrade facilities at the Airport, where taxpayers could have lost Shs1 billion.

Richard Ssebamala, Bukoto Central MP scoured through the voluminous bid documents which were under the committee’s scrutiny and discovered missing pages and alterations in figures that members said could be an indication of fraudulent behavior.

“These particular crossings [in the figures and documents] are not our work; that is not my submission,” said Mayesh Seyani, the group’s Managing Director, in response to Ssebamala’s assertions.

Two missing pages in the bid documents and alterations of figures that initially read Shs725 million to read Shs1.725 billion raised MPs’ eyebrows.

Committee chairperson, Joel Ssenyonyi ordered the Seyani Brothers to submit their original bid document and will appear alongside the Uganda Civil Aviation Authority (UCAA) so that claims about inauthentic documents can be resolved.

Another query that rattled MPs regards a one Vica Patel, who allegedly obtained a diploma in surveying at the age of 13 and was one of those responsible for the works at the construction site.

“Vica Patel, a surveyor, qualified in 2003, but incidentally this Vica Patel was born on 03rd March 1990, which means he became a surveyor at the age of 13,” said Ssenyonyi.

Seyani initially said the surveyor in question was “used in the terminal for this project sometime back in 2015,” but later claimed it was a typographical error in his details in the first place saying he will need more time to ascertain the details being contested.

“If this was a material issue, the question is to UCAA [Uganda Civil Aviation Authority] why didn’t they disqualify the bidder?” he said.