Maravi

Controlling officers delay projects, says ZNTB director

Controlling officers delay projects, says ZNTB director
By Fridah Zinyama
Thursday April 10, 2008 [04:00]

THE Parliamentary Committee on Communications, Transport, Works and Supply on Tuesday heard that controlling officers were to blame for the delay in projects implementation because they prepare procurement plans late. Last year, K9 billion was not utilised and was returned to the treasury.

Zambia National Tender Board (ZNTB) director general, David Kapitolo told the committee chaired by UPND Siavonga member of parliament Douglas Siakalima that the funds were returned to the treasury not due to problems in tender processes but because controlling officers always prepared their procurement plans late.

Kapitolo said he had written to all controlling officers to prepare their procuring plans on time but “this never happens”.

“They know how much time the procedure takes but they wait until October when the tendering process has already begun. In October, we are normally overwhelmed with applications from controlling officers for projects, but it is already too late as we are drawing to the close of the year,” he explained.

And Kapitolo said if the budget was approved before the end of the year and everything was ready by January, it would give the tender board enough time to do most of the projects.

And Engineering Institute of Zambia vice-president Henry Musonda attributed the shoddy work on most of the roads to the awarding of contracts to the lowest bidders.

“The engineering profession is coming under attack for doing shoddy work when the blame could be attributed to the tendering process,” he said.

Musonda said the awarding of contracts was not been done in a proper manner.

“Somewhere things are not going well. contracts are being awarded to people who do shoddy works,” he said. “Very few roads come out good due to contracts being awarded to poor contractors.”

Labels: DAVID KAPITOLA, HENRY MUSONDA, PCCTWS, PROJECT MANAGEMENT, ZNTB

posted by MrK @ 1:53 PM