Rural electrification project winds up

MBONGENI MGUNI
Staff Writer | Tuesday August 10, 2010 00:00

The Matsitama event marks the culmination of a three-year project, which began in Gakuto, Kweneng East in September 2007 and has thus far transformed the lives of thousands of villagers.

The closing ceremony will mark the official handover of the 100 villages project from the contractors to government.  Last August, a ceremony was held in Tlhareseleele in the Barolong area, marking the half-way mark of the rural villages electrification project.

The Minister of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, Ponatshego Kedikilwe, senior government officials and representatives of Swedish financiers and contractors are expected to grace the October event.

'The ceremony will be held on that date and the minister has confirmed that he will be available. From the Swedish side, we expect that the delegates we had at the groundbreaking ceremony in Gakuto in 2007, will again return for the closing ceremony,' said Bame Kedikilwe, project manager at SWECO International.

SWECO International, a Swedish consulting firm with a global footprint, has been closely involved in the rural electrification project. Another Swedish firm, Eltel Networks, is the principal contractor for the project. It recruited 18 local sub-contractors for the job, 12 of which were citizens.

The contractors said barring unforeseen challenges, the few remaining villages were expected to be electrified well in time for the closing ceremony.

'We are in the final stages and should be done before the date of the ceremony, if nothing unexpected happens,' said Eltel Networks Local Project Manager, Bengt Rostlund.

'Eltel has forwarded the invitation for the closing ceremony to concerned parties in Sweden,' he added.  The 100 villages electrification project, made possible through a $84 million loan from two Swedish banks to government, is among the largest infrastructural undertakings carried out in Botswana since independence.  The project's costs spilt over the loan amount by P42 million, owing to increases in the prices of various inputs such as copper, aluminium, wood, labour, fuel and currency movements.

By late June, only seven village were still without electricity, indicating the rapid pace of the project in spite of the intervening global recession in 2009.  The electrified villages' project covered locations in every district, including remote areas, and thus achieved one of government's major infrastructural and national development targets.