19 May 2016

Former vice president, Dr Ponatshego Kedikilwe, has given the land servicing project at Extension 11 in Palapye a green light.

When touring the project on Wednesday, Dr Kedikilwe, who is also chairperson of the Presidential Inspectorate Team, said construction of the 5km road that will connect extension 11 to the village was a move in the right direction especially that the road would help decongest the Gaborone/Francistown road.

He urged the contractor and other stakeholders involved in the project to ensure that the project was completed on time and on budget.

Dr Kedikilwe raised concern over Botswana Telecommunications Corporation Limited’s failure to supply copper wires on time as required by the contractor saying that this would ultimately delay the project.

He, however, took note of the problem.The multi-million pula land servicing project started in October 2013 and was initially expected to be complete by April 2016.

Due to additional work which entails construction of additional roads, the project was extended by six months thus is expected to be complete by October 2016.

The land servicing project entails construction of 75km of road and storm water drainage, 65km of water reticulation, 63 km of sewer reticulation, four lift pump stations and two pump stations as well as 55km of telecommunication ducts.

One of the project stakeholders Mr Biggie Derera said the work assigned to the contractor is currently 80 per cent complete because of the additional work.

He said construction of roads is currently at 77 per cent against the planned 80 per cent whilst sewer reticulation at 83 per cent exceeding the targeted 81 per cent.

Water reticulation, he said is at 90 per cent whilst construction of BTC ducts is at 75 per cent against the planned 80 per cent, attributing this to BTC’s failure to supply copper wires on time.

He said the contractor made efforts to engage BTC but without success.

He also informed the inspectorate team that the project suffered a set-back in the first quarter of 2014 as a result of heavy rains hence work in trenches was limited to 500 metres.

He said approval of EIA report for borrow pit was received six months after commencement of the project thus the contractor incurred some challenges.

He also decried insufficient resources for main contractor and poor performance of one of the roads subcontractors. 

However these challenges were overcome by bringing more resources and engaging another subcontractor for roads. ENDS