29 Aug 2019

The overall progress of North West Transmission Grid Connection (NWTGC) which commenced in January 2019 stands at 73 per cent against target of 86 per cent.

The Project Manager Mr George Moeti said on August 28 during a media tour aimed at updating members of the press on NWTGC progress.

Mr Moeti stated that recovery plans were in place to catch up on lost time. NWTGC project worth P2. 355 billion, he said was aimed at providing grid access to the Northwest part of the country including Chobe and Ghanzi districts.

The current areas, he said were currently being supported from Namibia through cross border distribution networks with limited capacity.

That, he said suppressed potential economic development, notably mining and agricultural developments.

Mr Moeti stated that demand in some villages exceeded distribution network capacity leading to compromised quality of supply.

He further said NWTGC was split in to two phases, being phase one, which is the 400/220/132Kv transmission lines from Morupule B to Letlhakane/Orapa, Maun, Toteng, Gumare, Samochima and Ghanzi including associated substations.

Phase two, covered transmission lines from Phokoje substation to Dukwi, Pandamatenga and Kasane including associated substations. 

He however said some substations were put on hold due to financial constraints.

The project is expected to be completed in December,and will be on 24 months defects and liabilities, as well as additional five years latent defects.

Botswana Power Corporation, he said would at completion of the project own an intellectual property rights for 400Kv and 132 kV tower designs which were previously procured from ESKOM.

Mr Moeti said Botswana would have an infrastructure that would enable exportation of power to neighbouring countries and would be able to supply areas that were being supplied from other countries.

NWTGC has to date engaged 2224 Batswana as engineers, supervisors, technicians, tradesman, mobile equipment operators, unskilled labour and graduates.

The numbers, he said were expected to increase as and when other construction activities such as tower assembly and erection continued. As part of the citizen economic empowerment policy, all the main contractors engaged citizen owned companies as sub-contractors to carry construction works.

Mr Moeti indicated that the contractors had to date employed 32 Batswana graduate engineers in training for skills transfer purpose, and 11 of them were confirmed as senior engineers in July 2019.

He said the contractors would train 40 BPC employees on operations and maintenance of new assets. Mr Moeti further stated that BPC employees had already undergone training offered by NWTGC contractors in India, South Africa and Botswana for knowledge and skills transfer. Ends