Sekasi Institute Gets Sh16.1m Boost

THE President’s Office yesterday handed over training equipment worth sh16.1m, a presidential pledge to the Jimmy Sekasi Institute of Catering at the institute premises in Kabalagala, reports Edris Kisambira. Joan Kakwenzire, the special presidential advisor on poverty alleviation, handed over the equipment to the institute management headed by Sekasi’s widow, Grace.President Yoweri Museveni made the pledge a few days after Jimmy Sekasi, the founder and proprietor of the institute, was together with some of his students slain by suspected Lord’s Resistance Army rebels. The President made an impromptu visit to the institute.Mrs. Sekasi, who now runs the institute, told reporters that the President visited the institute unannounced a few days after the incident in the Paraa area. He delivered his condolences and pledged to aid the institute.She said she wrote a project proposal, which she submitted to the President’s Office which approved it. The equipment handed over included one gas oven with stoves (sh2.2m), one electric oven with ranges (sh1.5m), one dough mixer (sh3.5m) and one grill (sh2.5m). Others are a salamander (sh1m), one potato peeler (sh1.5m), one photocopier (sh2.5m), four computers (sh4.8m) and a fax machine (worth sh1m).Following the publication of a story in the press that the President had offered sh17m to Sekasi, parents and relatives of some of the slain students started demanding for a share of the money. They thought it was some kind of compensation to the victims of the rebel attack.But Kakwenzire said the President gave the assistance not to Sekasi as a widow, but to the institute in recognition of the work of her late husband.Ends