Alindo Engineering faces blacklisting over P78m-worth of projects
Tsaone Basimanebotlhe | Friday November 9, 2018 12:45
In the last three years, the company has been given jobs to the tune of P78 million and only one of the four projects the company was awarded is near completion.
Members of Parliament had called for action to be taken against the owner of the company, Albert Mbayi, who is the Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) member that challenged for deputy treasurer in the party’s last congress.
The delinquent company has a norm of failing to finish projects they have been given public funds to carry out. The company keeps on getting jobs with the Department of Technical Services (DTS), but the company rarely ever completes the jobs.
Alindo Engineering and General Maintenance company was awarded a tender at a cost of P18,894,333.47.
The issue arose after the Jwaneng/Mabutsane MP Shawn Ntlhaile wanted the Minister of Basic Education to give updates on the status of Maiteko Junior Secondary School expansion project and action taken against the contractor.
“The delay in completion of the project has a huge economic cost in fluctuations in labour and material costs. Currently, the estimated cost of completion of the project is P26,854,663.36 an additional P7,960,329.89 over and above the original project sum,” the minister said.
Parliament learnt that the delay is impacting negatively on the end users being teachers as there is a critical shortage of accommodation for them and it may result in poor staff morale and even impact performance.
Arone said his ministry has made structural assessment of the works and instructed the contractor to attend to the affected items and the contractor has applied for assignment of the works to another contractor to secure completion of the project.
He continued: “My ministry has not yet acceded to this request because of non-availability of funds. The ultimate action that can be taken against the contractor will be to blacklist him from doing any future government projects. My ministry, through the DTS is in possession of the performance bonds for the project to go against abandonment by the contractor”.
The minister said no action has been taken against the officials responsible for the project and that the abandonment of the site by the contractor was beyond their control.
He said they had requested for additional funds from the Ministry of Finance and Economic Development to complete the outstanding works.