EXTENSION 11 SERVICING ONGOING Kgotsofalang Botsang reporting for BOPA from Palapye Infrastructure development at Palapye’s Extension 11 has kick-started and after completion, it will pave way for allocation of plots. The project, which should be completed by April 2016, entails construction of permanent office block, 69.8km of roads and storm water drainage, 55km of water reticulation, 57km of sewer reticulation and 57km of telecommunication civil works and offsite works which include a sewer pipeline outfall, pump station, access road and junction into A1 road. Speaking in an interview recently, department of technical services project officer, Mr Frans Bale said tender for the infrastructure development project at Extension 11 was awarded to Zhengtai Group to the tune of over P3 million. He said the project was 14 per cent against the expected 24 per cent that is about two and a half months behind schedule. He attributed the delay to heavy rains at the beginning of the year, insufficient tipper trucks and delay in securing a borrow pit as approval of environmental impact assessment report for borrow pit took a long time. However he said the work that had been done included establishment on site, construction of permanent office block which was 70 per cent complete. In addition excavations had been done for water reticulation and sewer reticulation as well as clearance of 38km of roads. Mr Bale stated that Department of Mines had issued out a mining permit thus a borrow pit had been sourced. He said the contractor will increase tipper trucks and engage an additional grader team to increase production to make up for the lost time. The site to be developed under this project is an area measuring 350 hectares where 3159 plots will be serviced. Before the project took off, Palapye sub-landboard had mistakenly allocated 462 plots in this area but it clarified that no development of the plots was permitted whilst the project was ongoing as such development of plots will be carried out after the project had been handed over. For his part, Palapye Administration Authority chairman, Mr Onneetse Ramogapi implored the contractor to do his best to make up for the lost time and deliver the project on time and on budget.He said the government is seriously concerned about delayed projects citing projects such as Morupule B power station, Botswana International University of Science and Technology and the new police station. The contract for the project specified that 20% of the value of work, that is P74.7m should be subcontracted to 100% citizen sub-contractors and companies. The project has also created employment for Palapye community as the contractor had employed a total of 221 personnel of which 206 are citizens and 15 are expatriates.
Posted on: Mon, 09 Jun 2014 19:01:41 +0000
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