01 Feb 2021

Assistant Minister of Local Government and Rural Development, Mr Sethabelo Modukanele has acknowledged some progress delays in some projects in the North West District. Answering a question at Ntlo Ya Dikgosi from specially elected Kgosi Oateng Setlhodi recently, Mr Modukanele said the council was still implementing a total of 318 Community Constituency Projects (CCP) for 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 financial years.

So far, Mr Modukanele said, 248 projects had been successfully completed, 53 were ongoing and at different stages, while 17 had not yet started. “The progress of ongoing projects is at 94 per cent, 75 per cent and 62 per cent for financial years 2017/2018, 2018/2019 and 2019/2020 respectively,” he said.

He explained that delay in completion of the projects was caused by, among others, change of the initially approved projects by the community and taking long to identify alternative projects and appeals on awarded tenders by contractors. “Some projects appealed twice after having gone through re-tendering,” he said.

Some of the challenges Mr Modukanele added, included underpricing or under budgeting of some projects, leading to insufficient funds to implement some proposed projects and poor performance and workmanship by some contractors and artisans resulting in some abandoning the projects. 

Furthermore, he said failure of suppliers to supply material on time as the demand for building material was high in the Okavango Sub-district also delayed project completion.

“They also have challenges of limited cash flows of their businesses,” he said. Again, he said some of the plans that were put in place to fast track implementation of projects and avoid similar delays in future included a decision by council leadership not to allow change of projects after approval.

He said the council had also resolved to strengthen monitoring of projects to ensure effective management and implementation.

In addition, Mr Modukanele said contractors experiencing cash flow problems would be assisted with advance mobilisation. Despite the challenges alluded to, Mr Modukanele expressed hope that ongoing projects would be completed by the end of April this year. ENDS