Francis Lukwago was a builder. On Monday evening, the four-storey church extension he was working on collapsed, and he did not come out alive.
The Entebbe church collapse happened at Holy City Church, led by Pastor Ronnie Makabai, in Bwerenga, Katabi Town Council, Wakiso District. The site sits along Entebbe Road.
Police first said about 22 people had been rescued after the Entebbe church collapse. By Tuesday, spokesperson Rachael Kawala put the figure at 25 adult men, all pulled alive from beneath the concrete after the Entebbe church collapse.
They were taken to Kisubi Hospital, Entebbe Grade B Hospital and Mulago National Referral Hospital.
An officer on the rescue team said the count rose from 11 to 23 by 2am. Excavators worked through the night and paused briefly around 6am so crews could rest.
One survivor told Daily Monitor he heard a loud noise and everyone started running. He hid under a metallic stage, and “that is what saved me”.
Not every account of the Entebbe church collapse matches. Nile Post, citing a source in the rescue team, reported that two bodies had been recovered. Police had confirmed one death only at the time of the reports.
Another gap is harder to explain. Church management gave police a list of 40 people working on the site, the officer said. By Tuesday, police had publicly accounted for 26 people. The whereabouts of everyone on the list remained unclear. Police had not said whether all 40 people were present when the building fell.
Then comes the question of permission. Katabi Town Council Mayor Frank Kajjura says the council never cleared the building.
He said his town engineer, Kenneth Bagonza, had never set foot on the site. A town agent who did turn up was refused entry, the mayor added. “So we have no hand in this construction,” Kajjura said.
He also claimed the site engineer and foreman had disappeared since the collapse. That is the mayor’s account. Police had not commented on it at the time of writing.
The National Building Review Board (NBRB) has sent investigators to the site. Spokesperson Herbert Zziwa said the team was taking cement, steel and concrete samples for laboratory tests. It was also checking with the council whether the church had a construction permit and approved plans.
Police have sealed the area and are treating the collapse as a crime scene. In a statement dated 26 October, the ministry said it was cooperating with police and other authorities to establish what happened.
This pattern is familiar. In May 2020, a five-floor building collapsed in Lukuli, Makindye, and 13 people died. An NBRB survey reported in 2021 found that 88 per cent of buildings did not comply with the Building Control Act.
This May, a builder named Andrew Wonyakara died when a building fell in Mbale. The NBRB blamed construction failures. “Cutting corners in design, materials, or approvals puts lives at serious risk,” Zziwa said then.
In June, a building came down in Kisaasi, Kampala. Kampala Capital City Authority engineer Justus Akankwasa said it was illegal, weakly built and had no professional supervision. Two bodies were retrieved.
On 3 October, Daily Monitor reported that the NBRB had completed the first phase of screening about 5,000 Kampala buildings for earthquake vulnerability. The board’s own announcement, however, was dated 30 September. The exercise is intended to identify buildings that may need further technical assessment or intervention.
Less than a month later, the four-storey church extension collapsed at a site the mayor says the council never approved.
That is the contrast worth sitting with. The state is inspecting thousands of buildings, but inspections matter only when authorities can enforce the rules before a structure fails.
Faith can fill a church. The harder job is making sure approved plans, sound materials and qualified inspectors help keep it standing.
