19 Mar 2018

Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing Development in partnership with the private sector has completed layman’s draft Bill for the establishment of a Construction Industry Regulatory Board/Authority, Parliament has learnt.

Presenting the 2018/2019 budget proposal, Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development, Mr Nonofo Molefhi said this was done in an effort to create orderly operation and corruption free business practices within the construction industry that called for self-regulation of the contractors.

Mr Molefhi  noted that expectation was that once the Board/Authority was in operation, it would give impetus to a focused development and management of the sector for improved performance and greater contribution to the GDP.

He also said the ministry was reviewing the Building Control Act as the current legislation was outdated and it had to be overhauled so as to align it with environmental, technological, social and economic demands of the modern times to improve ease of doing business.

“The final Draft Bill has been finalised and is now with the Attorney General’s Chambers for legislative drafting,” he said.

Parliament also learnt that the ministry was piloting maintenance of government building through Facilities Management Services approach that would ensure that an expert service provider was contracted for a minimum of three years to provide the required maintenance services.

“Most of the budget available for refurbishment works has been sub-contracted to citizen and local companies, thus demonstrating a great opportunity for citizen empowerment through this strategy,” said Mr Molefhi.

With regard to update of ongoing projects, Mr Molefhi briefed Parliament that the construction of the 70-bed Shakawe Primary commenced in April 2017 and was progressing well, and scheduled for completion in October 2019.

He further updated Parliament that the construction of the Botswana Police Services Forensic Science Laboratory in Gaborone was on track and expected to be completed by April 2019.

He also said the construction of Mmathubudukwane Police Station and 55 Staff Housing Units were progressing well until the project started to experience delays due to challenges with supply of face bricks from one of the local manufacturers.

“Through mutual agreement, the contractor has since put in place a time recovery programme and will be able to make up for the lost time. The project is scheduled to be complete by January 2019,” he said.

Update of other projects include the construction of Maitengwe Police Station and 31 staff housing units which are due for completion in May 2019 and the construction of Semolale Police Station and 20 staff housing units which are due for completion in August 2019.

Minister Molefhi further stated that implementation of the building infrastructure projects under the Economic Stimulus Programme was being fast tracked while in some areas projects were experiencing challenges of acquiring mining rights for the extraction of building sand.

He noted that abandoning of projects resulted in award of projects to lower grade contractors some of which have limited project and contract management skills which contributed significantly to general delays in the delivery of projects awarded to them.

The minister, however, said the ministry and consultants continued to assist and hand-hold those small contractors who are in Grades OC & A to prepare monthly evaluations and to address issues pertaining to their programmes.

With regards to project quality, Mr Molefhi said the Quality Audit Team continued to conduct both planned and unannounced inspections to ensure that contractors and consultants deliver buildings that are fully compliant to the specification and also free of defects at the hand-over of facilities to government.

Similarly, he said the ministry continued to receive requests from government departments to inspect facilities to determine their fit for-purpose before rental or purchase by government.

He said it was now a standard requirement from PPADB that a fit-for-purpose report should be submitted as part of request to rent or purchase by various government departments, an initiative which he said had saved government substantial amount of money as contractors were now fully aware that government no longer accepts substandard works.

“We have started to witness efforts from some service providers to improve on their performance,” he said.

In the end the House approved the proposed budget amounting to more than P997.4 million. Ends