Mention Kabo Kote’s name in the company of building contractors and abusive words are likely to crop up time and again.
The incoming Director of Roads is stepping on a lot of toes and creating enemies as he tries to drag the department’s light-touch, laissez-faire oversight into the 21st century.
“An audit tells you how to do your work better. It was an internal process to help us look at ourselves,” he says as he reluctantly explains his decision to engage a firm of international consultants to audit all Roads Department projects.
The decision has attracted opprobrium from building contractors, consulting engineers and some of Roads Department staff members who are lighting the fire under Kote’s seat, which is already so hot he will be parking his backside in a fire bucket for months to come.
Kote is the man charged with picking up the pieces of the mess that has accumulated over the past decade and about which the Department of Roads has only just sprung into action.
We are sitting in his office with a number of his lieutenants, and for a man with a target sign on his back, Kote seems remarkably calm. It is no secret that he has crossed swords with several contractors and consulting engineers since he took over the post earlier this year, but such is the nature of the man that he refuses to divulge secrets of the dirty dealings in the industry.
For example, when quizzed about his dispute with consulting engineers, Bothakga BurrowÔÇôBinnie over the P536 million Kang Hukuntshi road, Kote rummages for euphemisms to sugar-coat what may turn out to be one of Botswana’s biggest construction scandals. “There are some contractual issues between us and the consultants concerning their supervision of the project,” he says.
By contractual issues, Kote is referring to his dispute with consulting engineers, Bothakga Burrow-Binnie following Sinohydro’s decision to rent equipment from Diretlwa, a sister company of the consulting engineers.
Sinohydro has been contracted to build the Kang Hukuntsi road while Bothakga Barrow-Binnie have been appointed by government to supervise the project.
As a result there are fears that this may have compromised the consulting engineers’ impartiality because they have a business deal with the contractor they are supposed to be supervising. The dispute has been slated for arbitration.
This is not helped by complaints from some industry insiders that the Sinohydro Kang-Hukuntshi road construction project has been overpriced by more than P200 million.
Explaining why the price for the road is P200 million more than the standard rate, Kote said, “When we awarded the project, the price of fuel was at its highest and the cost of material was also at its highest because of the construction in South Africa for the 2010 World Cup.”
Kote, however, could not explain why the price was not revised downwards when the price of petrol dropped and the World Cup construction was completed.
Pressed further that this points to unreasonable pricing, Kote explained that “the problem is that we have not built local capacity, so citizen contractors can not compete for mega projects. There is always a danger of international cartels colluding to inflate prices”.
The situation is further complicated when the contractor and the consultant are seen to be in an incestuous relationship.
The Sinohydro Kang-Hukuntshi project, which is already running behind schedule, has been dogged by allegations of impropriety. The Chinese contractor was recently dragged before the land tribunal by a quarry over who suggested possible corruption in the way Sinohydro was awarded a quarry site in Kang.
The Managing Director of Desert Investments, Oduetse Lekutlane, wanted the Sinohydro and the Land Board to show why the allocation of the quarry site in the Kgalagadi Tribal Land area should not be declared unlawful and in contravention of the Tribal Land Act, and that Sinohydro should be ordered to cease operating the quarry.
He said the land board had initially rejected the Sinohydro application and that after that Land Board meeting, the chairperson of the Land Board had met with Sinohydro, “in what smacks of corruption and malpractice; then Sinohydro submitted its application again at a special meeting of the Land Board. He alleges that at this meeting, chaired by its Chairperson, the Land Board allocated the quarry site to Sinohydro. The claims have since been dismissed by Sinohydro.
The Chinese company which is involved in construction projects running into billions of Pula has however been experiencing performance nightmares.
Some of its major projects, The Airport expansion, the Ramokgwebana-Francistown road and the Dikgatong dam construction projects are also running behind schedule, sparking complaints that the Chinese company should be blacklisted.
In an earlier interview with the Sunday Standard, Sinohydro Business Manager, Ren Chaofeng, said blacklisting non performing companies would be counter productive because companies like his, with skills and that are cheaper, would be driven out of the market leaving expensive companies that government can not afford.
Before a decision to blacklist a company is reached, he suggested that an assessment be made to see if there were valid reasons for the delays.
In a subsequent interview this week, Chaofeng said his company was involved in a campaign to train citizens.
“This year we have trained 100 workers through a BOTA accredited course and we intend to increase the number to 200 next year,” he said.
Kote is understood to be sitting on more than P500 million, which he is refusing to pay out to contractors who are not performing. Among the most controversial cases is that of Excavator Hire who were contracted to do the Mogobane Kanye road. Although the road is hardly four years old, it is already peeling off, exposing huge potholes. Some sections of the road have had to be closed and are currently being patched.
“The contractor blames the consulting engineer while the consulting engineer blames the contractor. As of now we are still arguing over their claim,” he said.
All these problems of incestuous relationships between the contractors and the engineers and poor performance are believed to be examples of persistent overall problems with the way the construction industry works.
“This is part of a pattern. In the construction industry, there’s a sentiment that ‘we can do whatever we want because no one serious is looking over our shoulder”, says an industry insider.
Kote, however, seems determined to crack the whip. His deputy, Thomas Moilwa, has been suspended while the Directorate on Corruption and Economic Crime (DCEC) is investigating the Bokaa-Kopong road.
The project was awarded to Zebra Construction Company for P1, 5 Million, but government ended up paying the contractor P6 million under questionable circumstances. The contractor charged government for 16 culverts but upon investigation it emerged that they had installed only 7 culverts.
The Roads Department in Botswana’s biggest spender and the planned audit of all its projects is expected to reveal embarrassingly poor oversight of the billions of Pula the department has paid to contractors and consulting engineers. Poor contract management is feared to have led to the inability to obtain quality services on time and at a fair price.
Kote would not discuss the details of the audit and investigations by the DCEC referring further questions to the Permanent Secretary Mabua Mabua.
