The Uganda People’s Defence Forces-UPDF Engineering Brigade has started refurbishing the house of former Speaker of Parliament Jacob Oulanyah at his ancestral home in Ayom Lony village, Lalogi sub-county, Omoro district.

The team embarked on the works shortly after President Museveni made commitments to support the construction of Oulanyah’s unfinished village home on Thursday. The president had met with representatives of the Greater North Parliamentary Forum at State House Nakasero.

Omoro district chairperson Douglas Peter Okello on Sunday said that the engineering brigade was already making progress in refurbishing one of the old houses ahead of Oulanyah’s burial.

The 56-year-old former Omoro County legislator died last Sunday from a hospital in Seattle in the United States of America-USA where he had been undergoing medical treatment since February 3.

At the time of his death, Oulanyah had been constructing a classy residential home at his village home.

Okello notes that the team will also join engineers that were constructing Oulanyah’s new mansion to speed up the completion of a section of the building where the deceased’s body will lay once its transported home.

Okello says the clan leaders and family members in consultation with the local organizing committee have since resolved that once the body arrives home, it should lay in his new residential home. He lauded President Museveni for his timely intervention to support the facelift and construction of Oulanyah’s houses.

Frank Mugisha, the project coordinator of Gada Engineering Company, the firm undertaking the construction of Oulanyah’s mansion however notes that the progress of the work was at 70 per cent but that Oulanyah’s death has greatly affected the construction works.

We’ve further learnt that with the intervention of the UPDF engineering brigade, the contractor is expected to achieve a 90 per cent completion rate on the house by this week before Oulanyah’s body arrives home.

Omoro Resident District Commissioner Andrew Onyuk says security has been beefed up at Oulanyah’s home to avert the possibility of some people taking the opportunity to conduct crime.

“Security is always our priority… we have cordoned off the place to filter the people coming in,” he says. Oulanyah’s body still remains in the US and awaits transportation back into the country.

Milly Babalanda, the Minister for Presidency in a tweet on Saturday revealed she will release the final burial program for Oulanyah on Tuesday.