The famous Makerere-affiliated girls’ hostel Pinto’s has been put on sale after the owner failed to clear a loan of about USD 2 million.

Pinto’s Girls’ Hostel in Kikoni. It is to be sold off due to failure by its management to clear a loan it acquired.

According to Musa Mayanja, the manager of the hostel, the three-storey  structure located in Kikoni is owned by Sir Pinto Distributors Ltd (SPDL) who acquired a loan from a yet to be identified lender  and failed to clear the it within the agreed period of time.

Yesterday, Mayanja convened a meeting with students in the hostel’s reading room to inform them that they should not get worried as their stay in the place is assured until the end of this semester.

For now, posters have been pinned all over the place calling for interested buyers to go for negotiations.

But students on the other hand have come out to show their displeasure with the move to sale off the hostel, saying that even their rent was increased from Shs 550,000 to Shs 600,000 per student.

Hope Kyomugisha, a first- year student of development economics said: “I’m personally scared of whatever the manager has talked about hostel, I considered management first, so hearing that the hostel is soon getting new management makes me stressed and wonder how life will be.”

To Kyomugisha’s dismay, even Mayanja couldn’t whether the new management will treat the students the same way they have been doing.

“They can decide to continue with the existing one [rent fees structures] or change all the terms and conditions,” Mayanja said. 

Pinto’s Girls’ Hostel was constructed in 2002 and has since been giving hostel services to Makerere students.