Greedy contractors inundated ministry’s headquarters – Molale
Mbongeni Mguni | Monday October 9, 2023 06:00
Transport and Public Works minister, Eric Molale said while the evaluators were hidden away, greedy contractors inundated the ministry’s headquarters hunting for their whereabouts.
“We holed them up at some place outside Gaborone for three weeks and denied them any contact or visitation even from me for that period for them to do their evaluation,” Molale told a recent meeting. “Lo and behold, as they were hiding, we were seeing all sorts of visits at our offices here in Gaborone, from BMW X5s and others, all looking for the evaluators. “Unfortunately for them, they could not find the evaluators and that tells a story. “Why would people want to interfere during the evaluation process by wanting to know where the evaluators are? “What are they going to do with that information?”
The evaluators selected nine firms, mainly engineering consultancies, from a list of 27 who responded to government’s Expression of Interest for the development manager implementation model, issued last December.
Under the development manager approach, selected major public projects have been packaged and their implementation outsourced to private companies. The development manager model is government’s main intervention to end decades of poor project implementation that has cost the country billions of pula in direct and indirect costs, and denied citizens critical services and opportunities.
Information gleaned by Mmegi indicates that the implementation of certain major government projects will no longer be controlled by the ministries but coordinated through a Catalyst Project Team (CPT) of senior civil servants, working in tandem with the nine development managers. The development managers were due to sign contracts with government last week, but have already been on site meetings with local government officials while also conducting technical studies in order to “farm out” the contracts for the various projects.
Molale said the sequestration of the evaluators was part of “departing from the norm” in public procurement.
“One of the reasons we moved away from the usual way of doing things was the worrying trend where bidders and evaluators work in cahoots,” he said. “When the evaluation is going on, some bidders know what’s going on, which is not right. “I’m happy to say this evaluation went on without a hitch because the norm has been that even before the evaluation of the tenders are complete, you already have court cases.”
The minister warned that government would not tolerate any semblance of corruption in the development manager model. He said clauses were being put in that would restrain bidders, evaluators, development managers, government officials seconded to the new model and others, from illicit practices.
“We shall be putting in a clause that says in the event that we see from anyone involved some semblance of soliciting or collusion, insider trading, hoarding, fronting and others activities, those found doing so will be disqualified. “Our project officers will be signed on to work with the CPT and the development managers and there will be no soliciting, collusion, insider trading, fronting or whatever and the law will face those who have transgressed. “Let’s avoid things that do not tally with our value system; these are public funds,” Molale said.
Mmegi is informed that the nine development managers have carved up the country into zones and projects which they will oversee. The new model is being used to fast-track the two-year Transitional National Development Plan (TNDP) and will include road projects, office buildings and staff houses, hospital facilities, schools, storm water drainage and others.
The model will also be used for the development of the Leather Industry Park, a key project that has moved at a snail’s pace since 2014, and also eaten up nearly P400 million in taxpayer funds.
However, the most eagerly anticipated project under the development manager model, is the long awaited reconstruction of the Francistown-Nata-Maun road, which has been allocated a total of P2.4 billion in the TNDP over the next two years.
A representative from Okavango Africa Consortium, the development manager for eight projects in the north, told Molale’s meeting that studies were well-advanced on the road project.
“We have done the site visits with our engineers and have been conducting traffic modelling on that road with our experts who are strong in this type of project. “We have also done reconnaissance on the bridges that need to be built and expect that between three and four will be required,” the official told Molale.
The Nata-Maun stretch in particular has degenerated into a strip over the years, as hopes faded following the breakdown in 2020 of negotiations between government and China for a loan that would have covered the rebuilding of the road.
As reported previously by Mmegi, the two sides deadlocked over the terms of the agreement, particularly the choice of main contractor for the project. Negotiations had run from June 2020 and collapsed without agreement later in the year.
Another project manager, GH Joint Venture, has been allocated a section of the same road, as part of 18 projects being overseen in the northwest.
“The Nata/Gweta road, parts of it have been waterlogged and the bitumen or top cover has disintegrated causing a lot of headaches to locals,” an official from the joint venture said.
Meanwhile, Molale will now chair the steering committee that both the CPT and the development managers are required to report to. The steering committee was initially due to be chaired by the Vice President.
Documents previously seen by Mmegi indicate that Molale and his lieutenants are the brains behind the development manager model, having conducted benchmarking in South Africa last October, together with the Permanent Secretary to the President and senior officials from other ministries.
“There’s a steering committee that should be chaired by the VP but he has said that since I’m hands on, I should chair and make decisions,” Molale said. “We will be meeting every week. “The stage has been set.”
Weak implementation, as reflected in the perennial poor spending of the development budget, has been the millstone around the neck of government’s best laid plans for decades.
Various studies have noted that the main challenges in implementation include poor scoping, weak monitoring, capacity constraints and inaccurate costing of projects, ineffective appraisal of projects, weak monitoring and evaluation, lack of coordination and fragmentation amongst authorities.
This year, the spectre of poor spending is again haunting the development budget, with revelations that in the first three months of the 2023-2024 fiscal year, five ministries spent less than one percent of their allocations.
This comes after legislators approved a P21 billion development budget, the largest in history, as a way of kick-starting the TNDP and catching up with projects that had stalled during the pandemic.
Speaking on Wednesday at President Mokgweetsi Masisi’s kgotla meeting in Masunga, Finance Minister, Peggy Serame said the rate of spending amongst ministries had moved to less than 10% of the approved development budget.