30 May 2016

The permanent secretary in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology Mr Dikagiso Mokotedi has raised  concern over what he called limited qualified professionals in the construction industry.

Appearing before the Public Accounts Committee recently, Mr Mokotedi said the ministry did not have leading players such as directors and their deputies including other senior personnel.
He explained that for the past five years the Department of Building Engineering Services had been operating without a director, the deputy as well as other senior officials.

He stated that these were key positions as they were responsible for driving all the government developments.
Mr Mokotedi mentioned that quantity surveyors, architects, and engineers were scarce skills, and that those who were graduating were still very young, limited and inexperienced saying a lot of vacancies were for senior officers.

He said the absence of such key people directly affected the delivery of projects.
Mr Mokotedi said the reason for not having such key people in the ministry lies with low remuneration

“The director of this department should not be taken as an ordinary director, it’s a no size fits all in this industry,” saying for that reason they have advertised posts but were failing to attract anyone because the budget was not enough to draw people.

He even said they tried advertising internationally but still no one showed interest and said he highly suspected the low salary the ministry was offering. Mr Mokotedi also pointed out that the structure for promotions was of way back in the 60s urging that something must be done about it.

He said for that reason, the work force within the ministry had a very low morale, adding that there were no incentives, no promotions nor recognition as compared to the private sector.
He said the ministry was lagging behind and requested that the issue be interrogated ,saying things such as staff welfare that included housing should be deliberated. Ends