Vice Chancellor Prof. Pauline Byakika-Kibwika hands over the site to the National Enterprise Corporation, marking the formal start of what could be the most significant infrastructure investment in the university’s history
Mbarara University of Science and Technology has taken a major step toward expanding Uganda’s medical training capacity, with Vice Chancellor Prof. Pauline Byakika-Kibwika officially handing over the construction site for the university’s new College of Health Sciences to the contractor — the National Enterprise Corporation (NEC).
Prof. Byakika-Kibwika announced the milestone on her official X (Twitter) account, confirming that construction will be supervised by the National Housing and Construction Company and is fully funded by the Government of Uganda.
“Today, I had the pleasure of handing over the site for construction of the MUST College of Health Sciences to the contractor — the National Enterprise Corporation,” she posted, signalling the formal commencement of a project that has been years in the making.
Shs 25 Billion on the Table
The scale of the investment underlines just how seriously the government is taking MUST’s expansion. The Government of Uganda announced a Shs 25 billion investment to establish the new College of Health Sciences at MUST, as part of a five-year plan to develop the Kihumuro Campus into a modern centre of excellence in medical training and research.
Agriculture Minister Hon. Frank Tumwebaze, delivering a speech on behalf of First Lady and Minister of Education Janet Kataaha Museveni, described the facility as one that “will position MUST as a premier centre for medical excellence,” adding that the government is “determined to bridge the gap between our national health needs and the limited number of specialists available in areas such as cardiothoracic surgery, pulmonology, nuclear medicine, geriatrics, and oncology.”
These are specialisations Uganda currently trains very few professionals in domestically — meaning most patients requiring such care either travel abroad or go without.
Who Is Building It?
The contractor, the National Enterprise Corporation, is a government-owned enterprise under the Ministry of Defence. NEC has been involved in several major infrastructure projects across Uganda, making its appointment here consistent with a broader government approach of deploying state-owned entities for flagship public works.
Supervision will be handled by the National Housing and Construction Company — Uganda’s state housing developer — adding another layer of government oversight to the project.
A First for MUST’s First Female VC
The site handover carries particular symbolic weight. Prof. Byakika-Kibwika was appointed as the third Vice Chancellor of Mbarara University of Science and Technology in August 2024 Wikipedia, becoming the institution’s first female leader. She is a Professor of Internal Medicine and Epidemiology, a Fellow of the Uganda National Academy of Sciences, a Fellow of the East Central and Southern Africa College of Physicians, and a Fellow of the Royal College of Physicians of Edinburgh, holding a Doctor of Philosophy in Clinical Pharmacology and Therapeutics from Trinity College Dublin. Must
That a VC with such a deep health sciences background is presiding over the launch of a dedicated College of Health Sciences is a alignment that few at the institution will have missed.
MUST’s Faculty of Health Sciences has been admitting students for over 30 years since the university’s foundation in 1989, and currently runs six undergraduate programmes: human medicine, nursing, medical laboratory sciences, pharmacy, pharmaceutical sciences, and physiotherapy. Must
A dedicated College of Health Sciences — with purpose-built infrastructure — would give those programmes significantly expanded space, equipment, and facilities, potentially increasing both the number of students admitted and the quality of training delivered.
For students currently navigating MUST’s packed health sciences programmes, that is welcome news. The university’s 2026/2027 government admissions list, released just days ago, reflects fierce competition — with pharmacy and physiotherapy among the most tightly scored programmes on the entire merit list.
