Feature: Becoming a civil engineer was a childhood dream for Atwine

Luckily enough, his father shared this childhood dream.

Eng. Atwine says his father encouraged him more often to do sciences which would lead him into engineering. This pushed him to work hard towards attaining this goal.

“Growing up, we had a very successful civil engineer who was a family friend in our home area who I drew inspiration from. My father often told me he wanted me to be like him,” he says.

“My father played a huge role in influencing the kind career path I would take. He encouraged me to do sciences at A-level. He was the kind of parent that always had a career path in mind for most of his children. Luckily for me, I had the engineering career path in mind. He would say, among my children, I would love to have an engineer, doctor and teacher et cetera,” he adds.

The 34-year-old civil engineer says his career path took shape when he was offered a government scholarship to do a civil engineering academic programme at Kyambogo University in 2008 having excelled in the Uganda Advanced Certificate of education (A-Level).

He would go on to join Egypro Uganda in 2012, an Egyptian civil engineering firm that had opened business in Uganda, shortly after graduation.

“I started off my career at Egypro Uganda, an Egyptian civil engineering firm, that had opened shop in Uganda,” he says, adding that he worked for the company for only one year and thereafter moved on to Soliton Telmec, another Kenyan engineering firm that came into Uganda in 2013.

Eng. Atwine today doubles both as a Soliton Telmec senior engineer and a proprietor for Sandhbolt Limited, a civil engineering firm he started in 2015.

Sandhbolt team upon completion of a housing project Pulse Live Uganda

Starting Sandhbolt

Atwine sounds optimistic when talking about his business venture, Sandhbolt Limited.

He says he only started the company as a side business that he hoped would help him rake in more earnings.

Over the years though, the company has grown much less to his expectations.

“I started Sandhbolt with a colleague of mine in 2015. I can say we have picked up and managed to get some good business. We picked up fast in a way we didn’t expect. The journey has been good so far and we are optimistic about the future,” he says.

Achievements

Atwine says Sandhbolt whose clients are mostly in the private sector now employs over 50 employees, 10 of which are permanent while the remaining 40 plus employees are on wage basis.

He adds that the company has managed to register some achievement by impacting lives through providing employment, and carrying out charity work in some communities where they work.

“For the last years, we have been able to impact lives through providing employment and carrying out corporate social responsibility in communities we work in. Sometimes we can choose to renovate a building block of a school. In Kasangati we built a toilet for an elderly woman. We have student trainings every year. About 3-4 students get trained at our company on annual basis,” he says.

Atwine at a construction site Pulse Live Uganda

Challenges

“Just like any other company, we have faced some challenges. Sometime clients are not willing to pay enough for their work. By the time a client comes to you, they have gone to more than ten engineering firms, so at times they may not be willing to pay enough which at times makes it hard for us to break even,” Atwine says.

“Other challenges are: Sometimes clients take long to pay and we end up getting loans, some don’t want to pay at all. There’s also a challenge of fake materials on the market.”

Thoughts on poorly planned residential areas

Eng. Atwine who is a corporate member of the Uganda Institution of Professional Engineers and also a registered engineer with Uganda Engineers Registration Board said;

“About that, I will blame local authorities. Government doesn’t gazette areas where that can be residential areas. Urbanisation is random. The local authorities are not organised when it comes to physical planning. You will find a house in a town. Kololo was a residential area, but today offices have filled up most of the places. Its more about the policies authorities put in place. We need policies that can enable proper physical planning.”

Thoughts on collapse of buildings

“I will still blame the local authorities on this. They do not do enough supervise of people putting up these structures. You can put up a structure and no government official concerned will come to see what you are doing. The challenge is that some clients do not understand who a civil engineer is. Some think because one can mix sand then they are engineers. They do not know who to hire.”

“On the side of engineers, you can go to school and learn everything but don’t do basics or you are naturally a thief. You know that you are supposed to put five bars in a certain place but choose to do otherwise. Some are negligent at work.”