Construction regulator on the cards

Brian Benza
Staff Writer | Friday June 7, 2013 00:00

 

Addressing the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) this week, Permanent Secretary in the Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology Kagiso Mokotedi said government is putting in place a registration board coupled with an industry regulator to guide the operations of industry players such as architects, engineering consultants and contractors.

'Because of lack of supervision capacity on both consultants and contractors, some elements have taken advantage of our situation by doing shoddy work or overcharging on claims for work done. This is why as the ministry we are introducing the registration board as well as the regulator to try and arrest the situation.

Just like lawyers and accountants, this industry needs to be regulated as well.  The industry has been operating in an unregulated environment and has been able to get away with all kinds of unscrupulous and unethical behaviour,' he said.The contractor registration board will be mandated with vetting all the companies that carry out construction work in Botswana to make sure that they have the required capacity and expertise to carry out such work.

On the other hand, the regulator will reinforce regulations and oversee the overall performance of the industry.The PS said they have experienced situations where consulting engineers are passing on unverified claims and because of weaknesses even at authorisation points, these payments have passed.

Mokotedi gave the example of the SSKIA where the former contractor, Sinohydro, made claims amounting to about a billion Pula despite the project having being awarded at half of that price. Another project that the ministry turned down was a case in which a contractor was claiming over P150 million but after adjudication and scrutiny of the claims, the project cost was found to be a mere P16 million.

Although government has been calling up performance bonds as well as   imposing Liquidated and Ascertained Damages (LAD) penalties for poor performance, this has not  deterred some contractors from engaging in unethical and fraudulent activities.In 2011, President Ian Khama characterised the Department of Building and Engineering Services (DBES) as a citadel of corruption where staff, contractors and consultants collude in massive rip-offs.

In a State of the Nation Address, Khama said a government claims audit team had discovered that millions of Pula were fraudulently paid to contractors and consultants by DBES.'This abuse was at a high cost to government,' he said. 'Initially up to P1 million in unwarranted amounts were uncovered every week.

As a result, there have been payment delays, which should abate now that the abuses have been reduced and service providers are improving the quality of their submissions'.The Minister of Infrastructure, Science and Technology Johnnie Swartz told Parliament early this year that a P101 million penalty has been levied on 26 contractors so far for failure to meet completion deadlines.

Government slapped a P64 million penalty on Sinohydro for failure to provide satisfactory work and complete the Sir Seretse Khama International Airport (SSKIA) expansion project on time.The state has also retrieved P17.53 million from another Chinese company, Tuwana Construction after its contract to build the Francistown Stadium was terminated last year over poor workmanship.