19 Apr 2018

Some litigations raised by contractors are delaying some development in Palapye, says Palapye Administrative Authority senior assistant council secretary (SACS), Mr Lucky Maoto.

He said the paving of the Serorome and Boikago wards internal roads in Palapye got on hold because one of the contractors had appealed that the tender to pave the roads had been awarded to the wrong bidder.

Mr Maoto said in an interview that the community of Palapye had agreed to use their P10 million constituency funds towards the paving of the village’s major linking roads.

He said the council had divided the roads into three packages, being A, B and C and allocated each amounts depending on how long the roads were and awarded tenders to contractors accordingly.

However, Mr Maoto expressed concern saying the Serorome and Boikago roads, in Package B had not even began as one contractor had filed a complaint with the Appeals Board in Serowe that he deserved to be awarded the tender as he was the lowest bidder.

The project was awarded P2.8 million.

“All our projects are behind schedule because the process started a bit late, but as for Package B project it is a pity because it has not even started because the contractor’s complaint had to be listened to and be dealt with before the project can start,” he said.

The issue, he said, would even take more time than had been expected as the appeals board has recently appointed new members who needed to go through training before they could start attending cases.

Mr Maoto said he was not impressed by some contractors who were sometimes not truthful, adding that most of their projects were delayed by cases of litigation which most of the time were unsuccessful, and that the contractors would go scot-free after delaying the development of the area.

Other roads covered by Package A and C are however said to be 75 per cent complete and expected to be finished by 27 April this year, senior roads engineer, Mr Ezekial Gidion has confirmed.

He said Package A which included Extension wards was awarded P3.6 million whereas Package B which included Khurumela and Thomadithotse wards was awarded P3.2 million.

Although Mr Maoto expressed concern about contractors who never completed their work within the agreed period, Mr Gidion said the contractors doing the projects were contractually not behind schedule as they started work on 26 November, 2017.

Serorome Customary Court president, Kgosi Samuel Maforaga suggested that in the meantime the council should attend to the potholes in the internal roads.

On another issue, he advised that the council should consider including village leaders like dikgosi and Village Development Committee (VDC) representatives to help in the awarding of tenders as they could assist in the selection of local contractors. ENDS