MPHANDZE-MBADLANE ROAD COMES TO A HALT

phephile@times.co.sz

MBABANE - Failure by government to pay the contractor has led to the construction of the Mphandze-Mbadlane Road coming to a halt.
Inyatsi Construction left the site and the construction has been put on hold.

Not only has government failed to pay the contractor, but is also faced with challenges in funding other project costs.

The road was financed by the Kuwait Fund (KFAED), Arab bank for African Development (BADEA), Abu Dhabi Fund for Development (ADFD) OPEC Fund and GOKS, according to the Ministry of Public Works and Transport Annual Performance report 2018/2019.

The project involves the upgrading to dual carriageway bituminous standard road. The stretch of the road which has come to a halt is 11 km long.
According to government’s estimates - April 2019 to March 2022, the total estimated cost of the road is E1 739 665 000

The government estimates from April 2019 show that E100 million has been budgeted for the construction of the road and compensations for the 2019/2020 financial year. The estimated budget for the financial years 2020/2021 and 2021/2022 are E353 730 000 and E693 560 000 respectively.

The budget estimates also show that the estimated expenditure for the last financial year was E592 375 000, and the actual expenditure was E404 021 000, which shows a difference of E188 354 000.

joint venture set-up
A previous report by the Times SUNDAY stated that Inyatsi Construction was in the process of constructing the Mphandze-Mbadlane road, where it worked in a joint venture set-up with a company called Sadeem Al Kuwait.

The project was expected to span 36 months from March 30, 2017.
An inspection of the road by the Times SUNDAY team showed that there were no ongoing works. It looked like construction had not been going on for a while.

Different parts of the road were at diverse stages of construction, and according to the report, the construction is currently at 60 per cent.
Clearing and earth moving was done in most parts of the road, and the pathway is clear. Some of the surfaces have been leveled and smoothed by graders. In other parts, the contractors were preparing to lay large concrete pipes, which have been left on the site. On other parts, bridges were being constructed, and all this has grounded to a halt.

At the stretch from Manzini to Mphandze, workers were scattered all over, and trucks from Inyatsi Construction and other subcontractors were busy on the road.
However, when one got to Mphandze, the amount of work being done started dwindling, until it was clear that nothing was being done. The areas which were used by the construction company to keep their working tools were deserted. There were also no workers along the road. The piles of soil, which were to be used on the road had overgrown grass.

At some point near Mafutseni, some of the implements used for constructing a road were scattered on the ground, and some of the metals had rusted.
At Mafutseni, adjacent the shopping complex, there is an area where rainwater has formed a dam.

Inyatsi Construction Group Holdings Chief Executive Officer (CEO) John Hamilton confirmed that they had left the site and stopped construction of the road.
He said they slowed down work in November, and in April, they left the site all together. Hamilton added that they were in constant communication with the government on how they could work together to get the project started again.

He averred that it was a difficult situation. He added that they were engaging with the government to try and find a solution as soon as possible.

Public Works confirms

Hamilton could not be drawn to comment on the amount that government owed the company.
“We are busy negotiating possible cost savings that we can work out without sacrificing the quality of the road,” Hamilton said.
He said in their negotiations, not all parties were pulling in the same direction. He further confirmed that they were still working on the stretch from Mphandze to Manzini.

The Ministry of Public Works and Transport through the Principal Secretary Makhosini Mndawe confirmed that Inyatsi Construction had left the site and that the construction had been put on hold. He said there had been some glitches in the construction of the road, precisely Lot 2.

 He said government and the contractor had, however, been engaging in positive consultations and the contractor had indicated willingness to go back on site.
“We are, therefore, confident everything will be back to normal and construction will resume soon as we are nearing the last bit of finalising details,” Mndawe said.

The report stated that the project had suffered a total of four slowdowns in terms of implementation, two suspensions and one termination in the past.
“All this is due to non-payment,” the report states.
It further states that the financing contribution from all the funders had been exhausted, thus transferring all the remaining funding responsibilities of the project to the government.

The report goes on to state that according to the loan agreement, the project was exempted from paying taxes, however, Eswatini Revenue Authority (SRA) required payment of such, resulting in cost overruns to be paid by the government.

Residents not happy

Residents of the area also decried the halting of the project. A woman who was found near Mbadlane said the road construction was an inconvenience to them, but they had expected that it would bring development to their community.

“We have not seen any construction going on here, and we are worried that this will now take longer than anticipated,” the community member said. The woman who preferred to remain anonymous, said they had not seen any of the vehicles used for construction, save for a van which they saw last week.
“One person alighted from the vehicle and took pictures of the road,” she said. Another woman who sells her handicrafts by the roadside also said they were worried by the latest turn of events on the construction of the road.

She said when the road construction started, they were moved from their structures, and they had to build makeshift ones, which were not close to the road.
“That was really bad for our business, as people hardly come here to look at what we sell,” she said.
She said they had hope that after the construction had been completed, they would be given a new site to build permanent structures.

incomplete roads

“We do not know what is going on, and we have not been told anything. This is part of development, and we cannot run away from it. However, it looks like we will have to work here for longer since the construction has stopped,” she said.

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