By Catherine Bekunda
and Justus Akampa

THE reconstruction of Kasubi tombs will start after July, officials of the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) have said.

The officials said they have to present a report to the World Heritage Meeting in Brazil in July before finalising a reconstruction.

“A number of prerequisites will have to be met before UNESCO can give the go ahead for the site “to be called a World Heritage Site,” noted Lazare Eloundou, the chief of Africa Unit at UNESCO World Heritage Centre.

UNESCO officials are in the country to assess the damage, discuss a reconstruction strategy and to safeguard the site’s outstanding universal value.

“The assessment report with recommendations will go to the committee for approval. Once this is done, then the reconstruction process can start,” Eloundou told journalists at the media centre yesterday.

“We have conducted several working sessions, both with the Government and the Buganda Kingdom. The desire to urgently see the site reconstructed was expressed by all,” he noted.

Eloundou said the team would write a series of recommendations, which would be submitted to both the Government and UNESCO for consideration. The report will include costing of how much is needed, the plans and designs for the site.

Fire gutted the site on March 16. Two other World Heritage sites in Africa have been gutted by fire since the beginning of this year. They are the royal tombs in Benin and a forest in Bostwana.

Several Buganda royalists and well wishers have been contributing funds towards the site’s reconstruction.

Labour, gender and social development minister Gabriel Opio, dismissed allegations that the Government would take over of the tombs after reconstruction.

“The site is owned by three partners, Buganda, Uganda and UNESCO, and there is a role for each. The Government makes sure there are proper designs and a plan ahead of the reconstruction,” Opio said.