17 Aug 2020

Chobe District principal physical planner, Mr Leslie Moabankwe, says as at the end of July, Kazungula Bridge component was at 99.86 per cent.

Giving a report to the District Development Committee (DDC) recently, Mr Moabankwe said although that was above the planned progress of 99.63 per cent, the project was 10 months beyond its revised completion date of September 5.

He explained that some of the challenges that resulted in the delay was arrival of a specialist technician of the embedded rail system from the United Kingdom.

Mr Moabankwe said further delays were due to lockdown in South Africa where material such as grout and bitumen were sourced.

He, however, noted that arrival of the specialist had been facilitated and they would go through the 14-day quarantine prior to performing supervision of the embedded rail system installation. 

He also noted that the contractor would make a request for facilitation of materials to enter Botswana.

Regarding rehabilitation of the Zimbabwe border road, which was the second component of the Kazungula Bridge Project, Mr Moabankwe said the progress was at 93.35 per cent against the planned 95.30 per cent due to the delay caused by asphalt surfacing works, which were still not completed.

The Botswana border facilities, which were also part of the second component were at 97.27 per cent as opposed to the planned 98.34 per cent and he said the challenges included termination of the domestic subcontractor’s contract prematurely.

Other challenges  were hardship in sourcing and transporting structural steel and bitumen from South Africa, the contractor’s concern about working near cross border COVID-19 screening centre and inability of movement of engineering staff between the project countries due to movement restrictions.

To address the challenges,  Mr Moabankwe said the contractor appointed an alternative sub-contract and the relevant authorities were working on ensuring that the area was screened off from the contractor’s work areas.

Presenting on behalf of the District Health Planning Committee, Dr Clement Mukadi, said the district should be on a maximum COVID-19 alert since it continued to register increased arrivals of residents and citizens from other countries. 

He said due to increased arrivals, the number of quarantine sites had increased from one at the beginning of the pandemic to four with 100 people quarantined.

Dr Mukadi said since start of testing in Chobe, a total of 7 274 tests were done. 

He told DDC that the biggest challenge in the district was lack of an isolation centre as weighbridge served as a SADC testing centre.

He further informed the meeting that health services that were offered at the weighbridge were transferred to Kazungula clinic. 

On drug availability in the district, Dr Mukadi said it stood at 97 per cent due to low drugs availability at the Central Medical Stores. The supply was affected by lockdown in many countries.

He, however, said as a mitigation measure, micro procurement in some circumstances was done and the Ministry of Health and Wellness was developing other strategies to overcome the consequences of COVID-19. 

A senior economist, Ms Lesego Moroanare stated that despite the many challenges in the district, government-funded programmes that were aimed at addressing issues of unemployment, poverty, inequality and exclusion had been averagely doing well.

She said the projects had been affected by COVID-19 as evidenced by the decline or no revenue collections by the various businesses, their closure and decline in their employment creation.

Ms Moroanare cited that the total number of staff employed in the tourism enterprises declined from 1 534 to 1 048 between April and June and the total monthly training levy collected by Tourism department decreased from P978 760 prior to COVID-19 to P87 210 currently.

She noted that Youth Development Fund projects were also affected by the pandemic and as a result, there had not been any loan repayment as businesses were closed during the lockdown. ends