Central Province Permanent Secretary, Milner Mwanakampwe says contractors who were engaged to construct district administrations in Ngabwe, Chisamba and Luano should be brought to account for the money they were paid because they abandoned the works.
Mr Mwanakampwe said in an interview with ZANIS that government should claim a refund if the work done does not commensurate the monies they were paid.
He stated that some of the contractors engaged to construct public infrastructure were paid 20 percent of the contract sums while others were paid full amounts but have not delivered the works.
Mr Mwanakampwe e observed that the works are stored for a long time.
“We have asked the Ministry of Infrastructure to do a thorough audit of who these companies are, because they were centrally contracted by the Ministry and Provincial administration was not involved,” he said.
Mr Mwanakampwe said that he has written to the Ministry of infrastructure to probe such contractors to determine if the works done consummate to the money they were paid.
He said that all contractors that have not shown seriousness to government infrastructure projects are not given new contractors.
“This could be the reason that President Hakainde Hichilemsa says that contractors must be domiciled in the district so that contractors can be easily located when they fail to deliver. These contracts were given to people who are in Lusaka, people who are on the Copperbelt who we cannot locate,” he said.
Mr Mwanakampwe said the Provincial administration will work with the district administrations, councils and Members of Parliament to put up remedial measures.
The Permanent Secretary said: “In Luano, the first contractor who was paid 20 percent of the contract sum but he abandoned the works, it was later given to another contractor who was also paid the 20 percent and also abandoned the works. These are pure acts of negligence.”
Those are all PF companies………..
That is part of their looting………
The works of PF for you. Meanwhile, we all have to pay the international debt for these looted monies
The issue that Mwanakampwe has raised is important. However, the manner the UPND has treated suppliers and contractors that had business with Govt prior to August 2021 is very retrogressive and primitive. They have treated everyone as a thief that used to steal with the PF. But they’ve themselves entered into very questionable contracts. MCS did the same and as an example the Landless – Mumbwa road. Sata canceled this contract because he didn’t like BY Mwila who owned Turner Construction but was very quiet when GRZ lost a lot of money in compensation. Politicians have collectively cost this country a lot. Within 1yr the AG has entered so many consent judgments and it seems there are many to come
It is very disheartening to hear government officials advertising gross ignorance on such plain issues.
Any person/entity that gets finances without rendering the agreed service must be arrested for “obtaining money by false pretences”!! A government officer has the audacity to say the said contractors can NOT be traced.. “because they are domiciled elsewhere, other than Ngabwe, etc!!” What nonsense!! Every registered contractor so engaged has a traceable office residence!!
Truth is your government was the first to breach the terms of the contract, boss. You fail to settle the remainder of the monies and you expect a contractor to sit around on site! You breach, I abandon.. And you know very well that you are the offender. Appraise yourself with basic contract law, boss. Your…
Unless there’s collusion, the procedure to get such funds isn’t as easy as it’s being portrayed. There’s always a supervising engineer for these contracts who must issue a certificate of completion, among other requirements, for government to pay the contractor. The problem is that even technocrats have elected to do politics instead of giving qualified information