It was heralded as the biggest, most complex, sophisticated and most expensive project ever undertaken by Botswana Government.
The strategic, security and economic importance could not be emphasized enough.
So much rested on the successful completion of construction of a power plant dubbed Morupule B.
Given Botswana’s strong financial credentials, international financiers were climbing over each other to bankroll the P13 billion facility.
The World Bank came to the party, as did the African Development Bank. Perhaps underlining what was at stake, Botswana Government met them half way and injected a substantial amount from the reserves into the project.
It was, until it unraveled on the back of poor contractor choices, inexperienced project management and technical inadequacies, seemingly a deal made in heaven.
Information trickling out of the dense fog surrounding circumstances at Morupule B reveals that the situation might actually be worse than the nation has been taken into confidence.
The most startling of that information is that Morupule B was never ready for commissioning, much less for switch on.
“For a project of this nature to be commissioned it needs to meet at least 95% of specification output. Morupule B fell below 50%,” said an insider this week.
“It was all a political decision. And it’s bound to catch up with us,” he added.
He says the World Bank had over-exaggerated Botswana’s ability to deliver the project of this magnitude when the institution lent out the money without technical back-up.
“It was a result of previous projects which the country has been able to deliver. The truth though is that today’s government is much more intellectually challenged than at any moment in Botswana’s history.”
To drive the point home, the civil servant compares Morupule B to the North-South carrier Project which was undertaken more than fifteen years ago at a cost of P1.5 billion.
“We had an option to choose steel pipes which would cost us P3 billion with a life span of 30 years. But we settled for GRP pipes at a cost of P1.5 b billion and a lifespan of fifteen years. When things went wrong we were not surprised. It was what we had factored in. I don’t think this particular government has the depth to even have foreseen the catastrophe that we are headed for with regards to Morupule B.”
He says the switch on was a “political decision” meant to mitigate load shedding which was beginning to have reputational ramifications on the government.
Even more scary is an assertion that the days of load shedding are far from over, especially if sufficient money is not held back so that the contractor has enough incentive to keep trying to turn the Plant around.
“My worry is that it may never be possible to salvage the P13 billion project. Some experts are beginning to sound the view that it might turn out to be cheaper and more economic to start afresh rather than try to salvage this mess,” he said.
For a project of its significance, Morupule had started on a casually wrong-footed record.
Right from the beginning a number of key factors had conspired to undermine the project’s chances of success.
Intelligence advice had been disregarded as had been advice from the Chinese Embassy that the contractor was not up to the task.
The Chinese Ambassador to Botswana had specifically written a letter to the then Vice President, Mompati Merafhe and the then Minister for Minerals, Ponatshego Kedikilwe giving them a heads-up on the pitfalls surrounding the Chinese company that Botswana government had wished to take.
Ruefully, Chinese Ambassador’s advice was disregarded as government of Botswana went ahead to appoint the same company.
In a totally surprising twist, the corruption busting agency, DCEC at the time also waded into the melting pot and in less than two weeks came up with a report to say they had seen nothing wrong with the procurement process.
The result was that the process went ahead full stream.
But as it turned out, behind the scenes, the head of intelligence services, Isaac Kgosi was having his own doubts. The spy chief was pushing another internal track, expressing his concerns and fears, nudging the authorities to tread carefully, including reconsidering their options. His advice fell on deaf ears.
He later told the Public Accounts Committee about his frustrations.
He had been ignored, he said.
Intelligence background check had revealed that Chinese company favored to build Morupule B was a high risk option that could not be trusted to successfully deliver the strategically important facility.
All he could was to advise, he said. But on this instance his advice was not for the taking.
Isaac Kgosi’s opinion and that of the Chinese Embassy proved prophetic.
Just as the contract between Botswana Power Corporation and their Southern counterpart (ESKOM) which had hitherto supplied close to 80% of Botswana’s power needs was coming to an end, it also became clear that Morupule B was nowhere near to becoming a shoo-in.
With the South Africans facing their own electricity difficulties, the pulled the plug and Botswana plunged into constant load-shedding bouts that almost brought the economy on its knees.
Embarrassed and politically vulnerable, the government of Botswana turned to lawyers to determine by way of an audit what had happened and what could be done.
It was then that a lawyer close to the presidency pitched head-on into the P13 billion project.
The intention, says the engineers was now to minimize political risks.
What the lawyer discovered were shocking revelations.
He nonetheless decidedly pushed that notwithstanding all its structural weakness the plant should be switched on, if only to temporarily stem load-shedding.
In the meantime a new and altogether aggressive public relations track was opened to give an impression that all was well, that electricity was back and that load-shedding was history including by insetting in President Ian Khama’s prime time speech at a party congress in Maun that the days of load-shedding were over.
People closely involved with the project, all of whom could only speak on condition of anonymity for fear of antagonizing government and its agents given the sensitivity and high stakes involved have however said it might be helpful for the nation to start bracing itself for an even harsher round of load-shedding ahead.
“The audit has shown that it may be cheaper to start a totally new plant altogether. What has been done is to make a political decision to commission the plant against all engineering tenets. Load-shedding was fast becoming a high political risk for Botswana government which is why the President dispatched his trusted lawyers to get involved in Morupule B. It cannot work for long and they know it,” said an official at Botswana Power Corporation.
Just how long the political option to switch on the plant against engineering ethos will hold is for now anybody’s guess.
