The establishment of such a regulatory body to oversee the operation of utilities companies is long overdue and a move in the right direction. I am not aware of the core mandate of the proposed agency but I can imagine one of the mandates will be to protect consumers by ensuring that water and energy companies provide good quality service at a fair price. Climate change, increasing population and improvements of living standards mean in future more new energy and water supplies will be required and hence the significance of regulating utility companies can never be sufficiently stressed. The formation of the Water and Energy Regulator presents the need for utilities companies in Botswana i.e. Water Utilities Corporation (WUC) and Botswana Power Corporation (BPC) to restructure. Consumer watchdogs like the proposed Regulator Agency restrict utilities company charges for providing their services to the public. This will have an impact on revenue for these companies and can potentially affect capital investments in the long run. The success of WUC and BPC going forward will be reliant on their ability to manage assets efficiently. The restructuring exercise will determine whether or not BPC and WUC adapt to new regulatory requirements. Key to the restructuring exercise is the establishment of Capital Delivery division which will focus on infrastructure development, operations and asset management. Amongst other things this calls for the recruitment of built environment professionals qualified in commercial management.
As a Quantity Surveyor, I am very excited about the formation of the proposed Regulator Agency because it will surely increase prospects for Quantity Surveyors in Botswana to play an active role in utilities sector. As fellow professionals in the Industry will attest the involvement of Quantity Surveyors in civil engineering and utilities projects is minimal in developing countries. Quantity Surveyors are more involved in building construction and Engineers do the bulk of the work in civil and infrastructure projects. This culture ultimately deprive clients the benefit of Quantity Surveyors expertise in value engineering, cost modelling and planning, whole life costing analysis, risk management and many other commercial management tasks undertaken by a QS during the construction process. Though the curriculum in universities places a lot of emphases on building work I believe that as a Quantity Surveyor we have to be discipline based and not sector specific. Our role should be to look after the commercial interests of the client in any built environment operation. I therefore cherish any initiative that will leverage our involvement in other aspects of the built environment outside building construction.
