10 Aug 2016

Consultant for Tutume development Infrastructure project Mr Anthony Rees of Haas Consult says the re-alignment of the 21km road was aimed at cutting the cost for expropriation.

Presenting the final draft of the design plan to the Tutume Sub- district council technical committee and Central District Council (CDC) representative on Tuesday in Tutume, Mr Rees also the director for Haas pointed out that prior to the re-alignment decision was taken about 50 properties which were going to be affected hence leading to high cost for compensation to property owners. 

And it is as such that after numerous sites visits with the clients being the Ministry of Local Government and Rural Development on behalf of CDC,  they agreed that the design should be looked into and alterations made to cut the costs.

With the new design which is at final stage, he noted that only about 11 households will be affected and therefore costs for compensation will be fairly reduced adding although there will be a slight increase on the distance of the roads, however it will be not much as it will be within almost the same range.

Furthermore, he noted that the first design which was done in around 2010 and shelved as a result of the economic downturn provided a narrow space hence cutting through many properties. And with the new design there is enough space which will allow them to leave sleeves for future use by service providers such as Botswana Power Corporation, Botswana Telecommunication Corporation Limited and Water Utilities Corporation.  

Mr Rees further stated that there have been concerns regarding storm water drainage which resulted in flooding of some houses. 

And in that regard they have made an allocation to have the culverts increased in size from 450 millimetres to 600 because it has been cited in some areas that the 450 mm culverts were problematic in maintaining and distilling them hence changing their size was the best option.

In addition, he said crossover or access slabs were also increased in size from a minimum of three metres to almost five metres and on areas such as shopping centres they were allocated for an increase of about 10 metres to accommodate high number of people.

For his part, civil and mechanical engineer for CDC Mr Boitumelo Keikitse proposed that in the final draft the consult should have made allocation of kerb stones on the new road because there has been a concern from the government that a lot of money was being used in maintenance of road edges hence it will be cost effective if all design include installation of kerb stones. Ends