The Ministry of Infrastructure, Science and Technology intends to terminate a contract worth close to P40 million with a local company, after it failed to complete 40 housing units in Block 6 in Gaborone for the Institute of Health Science.
This emerged at a press conference where the ministry was updating journalists on the progress of some of the projects undertaken and the challenges the ministry is facing in the construction industry.
It has emerged that some local companies have joined foreign contractors in doing shoddy work while some are completely failing to complete the projects.
The Permanent Secretary, Dikagiso Mokotedi, said the government had already paid the company P31 million for the work that had been done. He, however, added that the ministry had decided to terminate the contract with Ramodisa Projects Pty Ltd as it had failed to abide with the contractual obligations.
Mokotedi said the project started in December 2008 and should have been completed by February 2011 but the project completion had been substantially delayed for reasons that the Ministry does not find convincing, leading to the termination of the contract.
“The project has been delayed by almost two years because the owner of the contract is failing to mobilise his resources, both human and financial; the main problem is with his organization and management to ensure that all the resources required, including labour, are on the site to complete the project,” said Mokotedi, adding that the contractor had been given ample time to complete the project but always came up with unconvincing excuses.
“He sometimes argued which did not take us anywhere and with that, we decided to terminate the contract for the benefit of the nation and hire another new company to complete the project.”
