100 villages electrification nears completion

MBONGENI MGUNI
Staff Writer | Wednesday June 23, 2010 00:00

 

Initiated in September 2007 via a US$84 million loan from Swedish banks to the Botswana Government, the electrification of the 100 villages had a timeline of 36 months within which to achieve one of Government's major infrastructural objectives.

Yesterday, officials at Eltel Networks, the principal contractor for the project, said the Swedish company and its local sub-contractors were driving hard to electrify the remaining seven villages within the stipulated period.

Eltel Networks Local Project Manager, Bengt Rostlund, told Mmegi that the additional P42 million was contractual support for the rapid increase in various input costs that the project has incurred since 2007.

The 100 villages contract has provisions for increases in the prices of various inputs such as copper, aluminium, wood, labour, fuel and currency movements, most of which were affected by last year's recession. 

'We have not asked for any increase except for what was indicated in the contract,' Rostlund said. 'We have followed what was provided for in the contract and there has been nothing further.

'There are indices for the various costs such as for copper, aluminium and others. As a result of increases in these, we exceeded the budget of US$84 million and Government has added US$6 million.' Base metal prices reached a peak in late 2008 before plummeting throughout the recession in 2009. Prices of copper and aluminium are again on the rise, with the former reaching record highs earlier this year.

Local wood prices have also risen over the same period, driven by demand in various infrastructural projects. Fuel prices have generally risen this year, powered by the warming global economy, while the pula has depreciated by about 7.5 percent year-on-year.

Rostlund explained that government and the principal contractor understood the need to effectively deliver the electrification project, given its significant impact on national development. 'This is not a project where we can say,'let's reduce the reticulation for this village to cut costs,'' he said.

'There are no short cuts here and we have to honour every contractual stipulation to the full, even with the impact the global recession has had. It could have been done within the original budget, but then we would not have been able to follow Government's intentions in electrifying these villages.'

Eltel has also facilitated the electrification of clinics, schools and dikgotla in the various villages, putting in place one-phase connections (220/230 volts). The Swedish contractor is also assisting in the electrification of Bana Ba Metsi School in the North West District.

On project timeline, Rostlund said apart from the seven remaining villages, another eight were undergoing final touches and would be handed over to government in the first week of April. The eight are around the Okavango Delta area, while the last seven were within a 200-kilometre radius of Gaborone.

'We will be handing over eight villages to Government at the beginning of July, then we will focus on wrapping up the seven remaining,' he said. 'The last seven are mainly in the southern part of the country, around the Kweneng District area. There are challenges towards finishing on time, but we hope to complete the entire project in the vicinity of September.'

The Project Manager praised the government and the Botswana Power Corporation for fully supporting and facilitating the project since it began in 2007.