By Ronard Shabomwe
Kyambogo University has equipped itself with firefighting equipment to prepare for any fire outbreak to avoid what occurred to Makerere University’s Ivory Tower.
In September the iconic main administration building caught fire and the destruction was unbelievable. An incident that served as an eye opener to other Universities including Kyambogo University.
Professor Elli Katunguka the Vice Chancellor of Kyambogo University contends that when they saw what occurred at Makerere University, they had to prepare for such an incident in case it occurs to Kyambogo.
Kyambogo University previously had most of the buildings including those where the important academic and non-academic files are kept, which the professor says is a great risk to the institution.
Professor Katunguka reveals that they have so far put water walls facilities and fire extinguishers in the new buildings and the old ones, and refilled those that have been in place, so that in case there is any outbreak, it becomes easy to fight it.
He says that what happened to Makerere was unfortunate and the interest of people should be to establish the cause of the fire before rushing to rebuild the place, it is important to know what was the cause so that the fire will not suffer the same. The professor says Kyambogo will not wait to witness this.
Kyambogo University received a number of the buildings constructed with funding from the African Development Bank (AfDB) which lifted the face of the university. These are a three-storied central library with ICT-enhanced capacity, two-storied central teaching facility, technical teacher education workshop/complex, a three-storied multi-purpose science laboratory block and a four-storied engineering workshop.
The engineering workshop comprises a traffic and transportation workshop, material testing lab, water quality lab, electrical lab, modeling rooms, fluid mechanics lab, drawing rooms, telecommunication lab, meteorology lab and a computer lab.
Professor Katunguka says with all these buildings in place which harbors a lot for the institution, a lot is being done to prepare for any danger caused by a fire outbreak.
He further remarks that the next budget they will be considering putting more mechanisms of controlling such fires should they arise. He adds that most of the buildings have a lot of information that needs to be safeguarded.
In preventing the same, they have as well equipped their private security guards with the skills of how they can easily fight fire if it breaks out.
