20 Mar 2013

Parliament has approved the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology budget proposal for the 2013/14 financial year.

The budget proposal tabled by the minister, Mr Johnnie Swartz amounted to over P806 million, over P510 million of which was for the recurrent budget and over P295 million for the development budget.

 

When responding to concerns raised by the MPs, Minister Swartz acknowledged the concerns raised and stressed that the ministry has decided to improve the way it supervises projects.

While Mr Swartz admitted that supervision of projects used to be weak which contributed to poor workmanship and change of scope in some projects, he said sound project supervision was the cornerstone of successful completion of projects.

He assured MPs that the ministry would intensify maintenance of buildings to ensure that their conditions did not deteriorate quickly.

He said the Department of Buildings and Engineering Services (DBES) would be split into two units. One would be responsible for construction of buildings and the other for maintenance of buildings.

On the issue of the Francistown Stadium, he noted that the ministry was working round the clock to ensure that it was completed without further lengthy delays.

Earlier on when endorsing the budget proposal, Francistown South MP, Mr Wynter Mmolotsi urged the minister to consider awarding projects to local companies in order to empower them.

With government support, Mr Mmolotsi said local companies would develop and do better jobs compared to foreign ones. “Continuing to engage foreign companies that do shoddy works is doing a disservice to the nation,” he noted.

However, he criticised the ministry for committing mistakes during construction of major government buildings.

He said over the past years, the ministry had received a substantial share of budget allocation compared to other ministries, but continued to perform poor in project implementation.

He said on a number of occasion companies engaged by government delivered sub-standard buildings. Mr Mmolotsi said delays in completing projects have cost government a lot of money.

“These include the Shakawe Senior School where we were told a school hall was built without brick-force. “How can we trust that the quality of other buildings in the school was good?”

He also noted that the Francistown Stadium and the National Stadium projects were not built to satisfactory standards. These he said, were as a result of mistakes during awarding of tenders.

“The ministry should be careful about companies it engages for its projects. We must look at their track records and check where they have worked before and if they had done a good job,” he said.

The MP for Tonota North, Mr Fidelis Molao also supported the proposal, and called on the ministry to support youth owned construction companies by increasing the quota of construction projects they are allocated from 15 to 30 per cent.

The MP for Nkange Mr Edwin Batshu, also Minister of Labour and Home Affairs, urged the minister to use the money to ensure that the Francistown Stadium and the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport expansion projects were completed. Mr Batshu also called for strong supervision and close monitoring of projects.

Boteti South MP, Mr Lebonaamang Mokalake, also Minister of Lands and Housing, observed that ineffective supervision of projects contributed to poor workmanship on many government projects.

Mr Mokalake said measures should be taken against officers assigned to supervise projects who then do poor work. The MP appealed to the minister to consider refurbishing buildings at Letlhakane Senior Secondary School in his constituency.

These include the school administration block which he said was gutted down by fire and the girls’ hostel which was destroyed by wind.

 ENDS