The Selebi-Phikwe Phase III infrastructure development project, which should have been completed last January, involves the demarcation of 2, 665 residential and 70 industrial plots.
The tender was awarded to China Jiangxi more than three years ago and was scheduled for completion on January 12, 2007. The delay has provoked the anger of councillors of this copper-nickel mining town. Addressing a full council meeting recently, Mayor Amogelang Mojuta said the contractor had now granted an extension of time to June 5.
Some of the industrial plots are to be allocated to informal traders, many of whom are operating from their backyards. However, Mojuta said the Mekoro III Project, which involved water and sewage reticulation, had been completed. Road works and storm water drainage for Selebi-Phikwe's industrial estate had also been completed, but a similar project for the suburb of Mekoro suburb was running behind a revised period by 28 weeks. "The delays are attributed to materials procurement problems,"the Mayor said, "and the contractor is on liquidated damages amounting to P559 000 as (from) December 2007." The construction of nurses' flats in Botshabelo, for which the contractor had been given two extension periods, was also behind schedule by two months.
