25 Jun 2014

The United States Trade and Development Agency's (USTDA) grant to the Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources (MMEWR) comes at a time when the ministry is faced with various project management challenges.

Speaking at the signing ceremony of a grant by the United States Embassy, the ministry’s permanent secretary, Mr Boikobo Paya cited lack of skilled project managers, inability to attract and retain skilled project engineers and lack of best practice project management processes as some of the challenges that the ministry was faced with.

Mr Paya said despite the fact that some major projects such as the Dikgatlhong, Thune and Lotsane Dams and their associate projects were successfully completed, some major challenges still remained.

He said the USTDA’s support was invaluable as it provided capacitating in best procurement practices as MMEWR was charged with huge infrastructure projects to be delivered in the next five years such as Chobe-Zambezi transfer scheme, the second North South Carrier pipeline, North West Transmission Grid and the Strategic Oil Storage at Tshele hills.

 “We are very grateful to USTDA and excited about this programme and look forward to adding value to the economy by successfully implementing the upcoming strategic projects,” he said.

For his part, US Charge’d’Affaires, Mr Michael Murphy said the USTDA was created to help the government of Botswana develop, design and evaluates large – scale infrastructure projects.

Mr Murphy advised government officials who are charged with protecting the public purse to ensure that the funds are spent wisely so that citizens get value for their money.

He said The Global Procurement Initiative is designed to help government entities to design objective criteria to evaluate projects in ways that take into account not just the bottom – line cost of a tender offer, but also whether the proposed project will perform as needed.

“This initiative is part of a sustained engagement with the government of Botswana, and to date we have already provided intensive training with leading, independent procurement and ministry officials,” he highlighted.

The Global Procurement Initiative which is being rolled out world wide, he said was launched specifically in Botswana since it has the right institutions and the right commitment to make it work.

The grant, he said is being provided to MMEWR to allow the ministry to go out into the market place to find the best, most qualified experts.

This, he said would enable its newly established project management office to design and ultimately implement infrastructure projects of national importance. ENDS