Power to the people?
Mbongeni Mguni | Friday April 10, 2015 14:02
On Thursday, September 13, 2007, the dusty village of Gakuto in Kweneng East began its metamorphosis into the first fruit of a multi-million Pula rural electrification project. When scores of senior government and Botswana Power Corporation officials as well as representatives of Swedish financiers and contractors descended on the village, the inevitable excitement belied the enormous task ahead of all stakeholders: the electrification of 99 more villages, across varying, punishing terrain and weather, through adverse economic cycles and conditions, all within 36 months.
The task, however, paled into irrelevance when weighed against the importance of delivering electricity to villages that have been in the dark since their residents first settled in them.
While the significance is lost to urban dwellers, for villagers electricity boosts quality of life and livelihood: new businesses open up, while existing ones are able to offer better quality for longer time periods, social services such as health and education are improved, private investors are attracted and modern conveniences such as mobile telephony and the internet are made possible. The provision of electricity enables villages to participate in mainstream economic activities and also represents a cultural evolution from traditional activities/processes to more convenient modern methods.
The significance of electrification was certainly not lost upon Gakuto’s traditional leaders who – at the launch – pleaded with the community members to “respect electricity and never vandalise installations.”
The significance is also not lost on Eltel Networks, the Swedish principal contractor engaged by the Botswana Power Corporation to carry out the 100 villages project. The contractor, which has a long and proud history in Botswana’s electrification, understood the gravity of the contractual mandate placed upon it to bring power to the people.
Eltel Networks Local Project Manager, Bengt Rostlund says throughout the challenges faced since 2007, the principal contractor, its 18 subcontractors (12 of whom are citizens) and 800 workers, have not lost sight of the project’s importance.
“We had to honour the project to the full; there was no room for shortcuts. Our focus was to follow government’s intention in driving the electrification of these villages,” he said.
“We are hoping to finish the final seven villages within the vicinity of September. Without the challenges that we encountered, we would have been ready by April or May.”
One of these challenges was geology. The 100 villages involved in the project are sparsely spread across the country, from the southern tip of the Southern District, to the Okavango Delta region, representing a rich and punitive diversity of geology. Often, Eltel and its sub-contractors would find these varying geological conditions from one village to the other within the same locality.
“You may find that in one village, we are able to simply use a labourer to dig holes for the poles because the soil allows that; but in another, we are forced to engage a drill because the soil is hard or rocky.
“We had challenges in certain areas which have a thick and sandy overburden. In this case, you will struggle to secure the poles,” said Rostlund.
The abundance of infrastructure projects in some villages also complicated life for the subcontractors. Government, through the National Development Plans, has a multi-pronged approach to infrastructure development across sectors such as water, telecommunications, roads and other works. Each budget dedicates tens of billions of Pula to various development works, designed to uplift citizens’ lives, while simultaneously incentivising foreign investment into other sectors of the economy.
In some villages, subcontractors would face delays in coordinating their activities with contractors engaged in other infrastructural works.
“In one village, we had received the approval for drawings and we had put our steel pegs on the spots where the poles would be. The subcontractor was then supposed to come and plant the poles on the spot where the pegs are.
“However, before the subcontractor came through, another contractor engaged in a water project came along and used the pegs to lay a water pipeline. We were quite surprised by this,” said Rostlund.
A similar situation is unravelling in Botlhapatlou, one of the seven remaining villages in the electrification project. The principal contractor has thus far been unable to peg the route for feeder lines, as the road next to which these lines should run, is due to change course.
“We are hoping to reach a solution on this particular case this week, enabling us to move forward and the contractor to get on site,” said Rostlund.
The boom of 2008 and the recession of 2009 also adversely affected the mammoth electrification project. Prior to the recession, engineering component costs, fuel and base metal prices were in record high territory, continuing a trend seen globally since 2005. Thus, prior to the recession the cost of rolling out the electrification pushed at the seams of the P588 million budget provided.
While 2009’s recession cooled the prices of some inputs, it put a squeeze on the availability of capital for infrastructural projects, and budget overruns for approved projects such as the 100 villages. Budget overruns were in turn worsened by the depreciation of the Pula against the Rand (12 percent in 2009), which, along with the US dollar, is a major currency in the project.
As a result, government had to dig deep into its coffers to pay out the contractual budget overrun of P42 million, to wind up the project.
“We followed the indications in the contract and we did not ask for anything further than what the contract stipulated. The various inputs in the contract have indices which are tracked, and these are included in the contract.
“As we exceeded the budget, government added US$6 million which is a provision agreed to in the contract,” said Rostlund.
However, as the finishing line approaches for Eltel and its subcontractors, the 100 villages project has been conducted effectively and efficiently, to the benefit of government’s intended beneficiaries –rural villagers.
When the last seven villages are handed over the government in September, Botswana will have 368 electrified villages, marking one of the biggest milestone’s in the country’s history. It will also mark the single biggest contribution to government’s stated “sustainable development” initiatives.
“Electrification is one of the pre-requisites to meaningful rural development, successful industrialisation as well as continued improvement of the quality of life of Batswana which answers one of Vision 2016’s pillars of a ‘Prosperous and Productive Nation,’” said Energy Minister, Ponatshego Kedikilwe at the halfway mark of the 100 villages project.