Cultural conflicts centre to the Morupule B debacle

Thalefang Charles | Friday March 21, 2014 15:45

 

Companies of all these uniquely diverse nationals have been engaged by Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) to deliver the P11.1 billion Morupule B Power Plant that has been delayed for years and still experiencing constant failures.

The cultural conflict goes from the alleged segregation the Chinese have shown the Germans after they were awarded the Operation and Maintenance job at the power plant.

The Chinese now shun the Germans.  The Chinese sarcastically allege that the Germans brought with them a team of Indians on the site, who collectively are failing to run the power station.

The Chinese perpetuates that their French project supervisor, is not sharing the blame with them when they were the endorsers of every aspect of the power plant’s construction. BPC would not allow us to speak to the Indians and the Germans, the French as well but they also point the finger back at the Chinese.

It is Batswana who are employed at the site who are the most affected by this bigoted exchange from all the above, poor work conditions and the ‘makulbas’ treatment.

In this pool of perplexity and variance, this week Botswana Power Corporation chief executive officer Jacob Raleru announced they are planning to bring in the Americans. 

That is another culture. The Yankees will be coming in for the second time, at Morupule B to do a root cause analysis of the whole power plant mess.

The Americans would be tasked with finding out who, among the Chinese, Germans (Fichtner & STEAG), Indians (STEAG), designers (Chinese, French, Germans, Japanese, Koreans) and Batswana (BPC and Botswana government) should shoulder the blame on this project crisis.

This conflict ensued after the government surprised the Chinese by appointing a German company STEAG Energy Services to take over the lucrative operation and maintenance (O&M) contract for the power station from China National Electric Equipment Corporation (CNEEC).

CNNEC are the contractors of the power plant and they have been running the plant until a rushed handover to the Germans by the Botswana government.

On New Year’s Day this year STEAG found themselves lost in translation faced with the task of running the power station with manuals written in Chinese characters.

Mmegi visited the Morupule B and met a group of labourers outside the plant dressed in military green overalls with pink reflectors. The obviously loitering labourers were seated under a tree, sharing a smoke. 

On enquiring about the state of the power station, one responded with resignation: “Eish, dilo tsa maChina, bra yaka! (Chinese stuff my brother).”

Shaking his head before pulling in a long thoughtful puff from a tobacco roll wrapped in a newspaper, the speaker then let his mate take the cue.

 “Tota eka nna yone jang ene e agiwa masigo (how could it be okay when it was built at night),” said the second.

But another man jabbed in, disagreeing with the first two.  “Ya agilwe sente, mathata gae oparatiwe sente (it has been built properly the problem is that it is not operated accordingly).”

The argument continued as those who are giving their time and sweat to the failing project tried to analyse the root cause.

The men in overalls also spoke of the heightened animosity between the Indians (STEAG) and Chinese (CNEEC). They said the government has hired the Indians but the Chinese do not want to go.

The question is whether the Chinese and their supposedly cheap and weak products still have a place in the struggling African countries.

The famous 1999 song by South African kwaito star, Senyaka, called ‘Fong Kong’, the musician speaks of inferior sneakers (teki tsa ma 45cent) that he bought from the Chinese shop.

The song revolutionised perceptions with regard to the Chinese products. Fong kongs not only became products with a shorter life circle but the cheapest and most accessible to the majority.

The label in Botswana was extended to all products from the East, including second hand vehicles from Singapore and Japan.

This is the mentality that could have enticed the powers that be to engage the Chinese in this national project.

Now the chickens are coming home to roost as everyone is blaming the government for hiring fong kong contractors.

Now the government appears to be also feed up with the Chinese, firing contractors as they did with Sinohydro, which was constructing the airport.

Their sudden turnaround on Morupule B’s O&M contract from the Chinese to the German could also be attributed to the fallout with the Asians.