Contractors� registration to reduce shoddy jobs-Molefhi

Correspondent | Tuesday June 16, 2015 14:06

These were sentiments of Minister of Infrastructure, Science and Technology, Nonofo Molefhi, at a kgotla meeting held here recently. The minister asserted that registering quantity surveyors and engineers would help government better monitor projects.

“All engineers who are not registered will not be given any tender; this will ensure that the government will take a lawsuit against those who do not do their work properly and to avoid instances where projects are not given proper attention they need,” he said. 

Molefhi said architects would also be registered so that if anything goes wrong with a building, they are held accountable and charged accordingly.  He stated that any contractor who does not do his/ her work properly would be de- registered.

“De-registering contractors will curb the problem the government faces of contractors who take their projects lightly,” he said.

Molefhi added that the government has invested a lot of money in projects, which are not giving back return on investment.  “It is high time the projects are done in a proper way, government uses a lot of money in projects which do not even last for 10 years, some contractors even abandon the projects like an incident which happened in Sowa road where a contractor abandoned the work despite being paid large sum of money,” he said.

The Minister also stated that the government has received so many cases of Batswana contractors who do not pay their employees while some when awarded tenders sell these projects at a lower price. “We have received so many cases of contractors who are not paying their employees while some sell their tenders to foreigners at a cheaper price,” said Molefhi.

He suggested that the security money should also be increased, as that will help the government not to lose a lot of money when the contractor disappears.

“The security money paid by contractors after being awarded tenders should be increased as this will enable the government not to lose a lot of money more especially in incidents where the contractor decides to abandon his work,” he explained. Molefhi expressed concern that the tender process was not always fair, as adjudicators seemed to have favourites. He said this level of corruption affected the country’s development in the long term as tenders were awarded to incapable contractors.  “We have realised that those who are awarding tenders in most cases favour their friends who are not fit to do the work, however the government takes corruption cases seriously and the government will protect whistle blowers,” he said. Molefhi said Batswana should take pride in being hard workers, and be more willing to do labour intensive work. “Some Batswana are not willing to do labour work. I fear that Selebi –Phikwe firms are going to close down because our people do not want to work hard. We rely heavily on our neighbours for physical expertise and that works to our detriment,” he said.

The Minister added that while farming was an industry that would diversify the economy, Batswana were not prepared for the hard labour it requires.