23 Jul 2025

Due to the passage of time between procurement and award of tender and given the age of the Gumare-Mohembo road, the road deteriorated to a point where asphalt overlay became inappropriate by the time the contracts were awarded.

Answering a question in Parliament recently, Assistant Minister of Transport and Infrastructure, Mr Keoagile Atamelang said the scope of works was changed to include reconstruction and widening of the road. He said it also increased to include the construction of access roads, namely Etsha 1, Etsha 6, Etsha 13, Ikoga, Sepopa, Kajaja, Nxamasere, Samochima, Shakawe Police, Shakawe Airstrip and Mohembo kgotla.

Mr Atamelang said the addition of ‘these access roads to the project was triggered by the application of the access roads policy due to the shift to reconstruction.’ He said considering the revised scope of works of each of the two sections was further apportioned into the two packages, depending on the type of works to be executed because the variation of the scope of the amount was beyond the threshold of 25 per cent above initial contract sum.

The assistant minister added that the new package was awarded as direct appointment because contractors were already on site. Mr Atamelang said the Gumare-Sepopa section entailing shoulder reconstruction and widening and asphalt overlaying stood at 57 per cent. He said package two, was the first 36.7 km of the Gumare-Sepopa section, entailing the cold recycling of the road and reconstruction of access roads to Etsha 1 (1.7km), Etsha 6 (3km), Etsha 6 (3.2km) and Ikoga (2.8km), which stood at 72 per cent.

Mr Atamelang said the contractual completion date was November 2024 for package 1 and February 2025 for package 2, which had not been met. He said in view of the lapsed time for completion, the ministry had received claims for extension of time with related costs for both projects.

Also, he said the claims for extension of time and related costs were mainly in relation to time taken to finalise the change of scope of works and time taken to finalise design for cold recycling and shoulder construction and time taken to find appropriate gravel sources for the construction of works which were not initially not contemplated. He said to complete the projects, the ministry planned to expedite resolution of the outstanding contractual matters.

Mr Atamelang added that an internal audit had been initiated to identify what transpired, starting with the chronology of events together with internal human resources involved. He explained that the rehabilitation of the Gumare-Mohembo Road (A35) was divided into two sections, being Gumare-Sepopa (73.9km) and Sepopa-Mohembo (74km).

The assistant minister said each section was executed through two distinct contracts and that the procurement of the two contracts started in May 2021 as open tender or competitive bidding and were both awarded in October 2022 at initial cost of over P100 million for Gumare-Sepopa Road and over P97 million for Sepopa-Mohembo Road with commencement dates set as November 2022 for durations of 15 months.

He was responding to a question from Okavango West MP, Mr Kenny Kapinga who had asked the minister to update on progress made in the project to refurbish the road from Gumare to Mohembo, especially the Sepopa/Mohembo section. ENDS