RA to engage Plem Construction Ltd on Chapananga Road: ‘Contractor did not design per procedure’
Roads Authority (RA) chief executive officer Engineer Emmanuel Matapa has said as suggested by Vice-President Saulos Chilima, they will engage Plem Construction Limited on the need to improve the Chikwawa-Chapananga-Mwanza Road project.
Chilima described as substandard works and ordered the redesigning of the first completed 10 kilometres (km) of the 140-km road.
The Vice-President, who is also Minister of Economic Planning and Development; and Public Sector Reforms, expressed the frustration after inspecting the Chikwawa-Chapanga-Mwanza and Nsanje-Marka road projects in Chikwawa and Nsanje.
In an interview, Matupa said the authority will take the responsibility to advise the consultants to review the design and rework on it and it will be at the costs of Plem Construction Limited.
He said a consultant does the design, but the contractor can “make some improvement and submit to us which never happened.”
However, Plem board chairperson Mohan Krishnan said that as contractors they did not design the road as per procedures in the bidding process, hence, they are not responsible for the designs.
“A client makes the designs and drawings by engaging the consultant and these are given to the contractor who is successful in a bidding process.
“So, for that reason, I don’t know how far we can go to do the redesign.”
He said they were not given any chance to revisit the design.
The Chikwawa-Chapanga-Mwanza Road forms a link between Chikwawa and Mwanza, the border district linking Malawi and Mozambique.
Chilima, nonetheless, expressed satisfaction with the construction works on the Nsanje-Marka Road project which is 65 percent complete and the works are expected to be completed by March 17, 2021.
“The design and the quality is really good, and they have remained with two bridges so far and we are optimistic that it will be completed on time,” said the Veep.
The Nsanje-Marka Road forms part of the North-South Corridor that connects Malawi to the port of Beira and the project is expected to end at the border with Mozambique.
The Vice-President is on a tour of public projects in the Southern Region to track progress and implementation timelines. Besides the Nsanje-Marka and Chikwawa-Chapananga-Mwanza roads, he was also scheduled to inspect the Shire Valley Transformation Project and a teacher training college construction project in Chikwawa.
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It should not take the Vice President, who is a lay man in those matters, to notice that the road is substandard. The question is where were the RA Engineers? What about supervising Engineers who are also paid hefty fees? And what about quality control Engineers from Public Works? Smelling corruption all the way. Now watch out for the additional costs. This costs for redress of the 10 km should be on the contractor.
Kkkkkkkkkk what a sitipyuti response from that poem guy
Did u realize that u are responding to the veep?
Koma ukalidzedwa siunukhadi.
Apa Plem yatha inanyang’wa kwambili, this is not dpp time,pano mukhauula
I don’t think he can do this kind of job in his own country India.
Why is it the government is still wasting tax pays money giving jobs to this kind of contractors who can do agood job.
We are not moving forward as a country because of this type of contractors.
How many times are going to do the chapananga.
Years back, government’s construction project used to have consulting engineering company and was always supervised by the ministry of works. The ministry had a lot of well trained engineers from various disciplines such that every activity during the construction process was monitored,this was so to avoid incurring unnecessary delays and expenses. And surely before commencement of the work you are supposed to have stakeholders meeting the meeting is to ensure that you are working on the same frequency to avoid kukanilana.
Come on Mr Mohan, how can you construct a tarmac road without designs as you are saying that you did not have the chance to revisit the designs.Was the contract imposed on you? How then did you come up with the bills of quantities for the tender process? Do not cheat us your company employs unqualified engineers for cheap labour and nepotism.
Munadyapo Bwana apa musati phimbe mmaso.The contractor is only doing the job worthy the change chinatsala.