17 Sep 2020

Department of Building and Engineering Services (DBES) has been restructured and divided to three streams of functions namely; department of facilities management, department of infrastructure development and department of project and infrastructure planning.

Minister of Infrastructure and Housing Development, Mr Mmusi Kgafela, said the restructuring exercise was mainly to assist the ministry to be more efficient and effective and to better support other ministries to deal with issues of facilities management and build infrastructure in general.

He said after restructuring of the department, all the employees of the former Department of Building and Engineering Services were absorbed in to the new departments, which included department of facilities management with over 1863 employees, department of project and infrastructure planning with 52 employees and department of infrastructure development with over 71 employees.

Minister Kgafela said all the 31 stations were undertaking detailed inspection of government facilities across 57 constituencies to determine the quantity and cost of refurbishment work that required urgent attention.

Furthermore, he said depots were not aligned to the parliamentary constituency model, but more towards the district administration model, adding that the depot fell under the new department of facilities management, which operated over 15 districts with 33 depots across the country.

Regarding Palapye depot, minister said there were  63 employees  designated to service  Palapye only. 

Explaining to Parliament the operations of depot under department of facilities, Mr Kgafela  said  each office conducted inspections  using technical crew compromising professionals, technicians, and artisans in the building, electrical and mechanical cadre on a weekly basis.

He said during the COVID-19 pandemic the department of facilities had been assisting schools with plumbing, painters, electricians, builders and carpenters.

Minister Kgafela said his ministry has worked with Ministry of Health and Wellness to maintain or convert some facilities in to isolation centers.

“I am aware that a decision was taken that ministries should maintain their own facilities, as such communication was made to various depots informing them on this decision,” he said.

Concerning staff promotions and training, Mr Kgafela said that there were set requirement that were considered critical before an employee was considered to be eligible for promotion which included factors like existence of a vacancy, proof of performance, performance of the right qualifications as stipulated in the schemes of service and proof of capability.

“Due to non-compliance to some of the above stated requirements a total of 162 employees of the former Department of Building and Engineering Services have not been promoted in the last 10 years,” he said.

Minister Kgafela said that his ministry would continue to upskill our employees using the limited funds allocated to training and development.

MP for Palapye Mr Onneetse  Ramogapi wanted to know the total number of former DEBS employees per constituency and further to state the reasons for the dissolution of the department.

He also  wanted to know  the number of employees  that were absorbed by other departments and how many were left and as well as updating Parliament on the daily work done monthly by the remaining per constituency and per trade. ENDS