Africa-Press – Uganda. The premier of Buganda Kingdom has revealed that the Kasubi Royal Tombs, which are under restoration, will soon be handed over to Kabaka Ronald Muwenda Mutebi II.
Katikkiro Charles Peter Mayiga on Friday said they “have covered slightly 90 percent of the works” and that the kingdom is “interested in restoring the site to the original values that our forefathers intended [it] to look like.”
“Right now the compound has been levelled… the inner fence is on finishing touches which are extremely important and expensive,” he added.
A fire on March 16, 2010 swept through the heritage site with more than 100 years under its belt, razing the main mausoleum (Muzibu-Azaala-Mpanga), where Buganda’s four recent kings were buried. The blaze left everything in ashes.
On Friday, after a routine supervision, the Katikkiro noted that a lot of inroads have been made since last September when the tombs were taken off the list of endangered heritage sites.
Mr Kaddu Kiberu, the chairperson of Kasubi Tombs Restoration Committee, disclosed that the remaining part of the restoration process is very sensitive.
“We have to make sure that as we are heading to completion, we need to avoid mistakes because we have a guide we are following to bring back the picture of the previous tombs,” he said.
Last September, the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (Unesco) announced that the Kasubi Royal Tombs, one of the tourism heritage centres in Uganda, had been removed from its endangered heritage list. Unesco voiced its satisfaction with restoration efforts. The decision on the Tombs of Buganda kings was passed by the World Heritage Committee at a meeting in the Saudi capital of Riyadh.
Housed in grass-thatched buildings on a hillside in the Uganda capital, Kampala, and revered as an important historical and spiritual site for the Baganda, the tombs were declared a Unesco World Heritage Site in 2001.
After the 2010 fire, the Kasubi tombs restoration process kicked off in 2013 when Katikkiro Mayiga assumed office.
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