Mogae's retirement house has defects

CHANDAPIWA BAPUTAKI
Staff Writer | Wednesday July 7, 2010 00:00

 

Instead of kicking his heels and relaxing in his retirement house, he is spending most of his time trying to fix problem after problem in both the residential and office blocks of the property.

During a visit to his home for a scheduled interview, Mmegi found the former president fuming after a team of electricians had gone back to their offices without fixing any electric faults. They had given the excuse that the walls were too high.

'How can they say that? How can an electrician say the walls are too high for him to fix a problem? They have been coming here many times and I no longer have any privacy because they have even been in my bedroom more than three times already,' the former president fumed.

'I want their names and workplaces so that I can report them,' he added to his assistants who were trying very hard to assure him that the faults will be repaired.

'This is supposed to be a state of the art house, the water is being wasted because all the sprinklers are leaking.The security lights are supposed to go on when it is dark but they do not, some of them remain on the whole day and cannot be switched off,' he said adding that the faults have been reported for the past three months and when we report they come and go back without  fixing anything. 'It is not only one who comes but three every time. They go back and claim that they were busy here,' he told Mmegi.

Adding on what the former president said, his private secretary Bapasi Mphusu said, 'Yes, there are some nauseating problems with this property, both the residence and the office blocks.

The air conditioning system has never functioned efficiently despite claims that it is a state-of-the-art system. The place becomes very cold in winter and very hot in summer,' he said. Mphusu added that the general maintenance of the place is almost zero despite their repeated reports and appeals for assistance to the desk officer at Office of the President. 'Different teams are often sent here to do repairs but nothing comes out of that, defects and problems are not solved,' he said.

The construction of the house was initially budgeted at P14 million but was later alleged to have shot to P20 million. The tender to construct the house was awarded to Italtswana Construction Company (ICC) and was supervised by the Department of Electrical and Building Engineering Services, comprising of an architect, quantity surveyor and three engineers who are civil structural, electrical and mechanical engineers. The officer at the department refused to give the names of the supervising engineer who was at the site at the time of construction.