RSTP CONSTRUCTION ESCALATES: FROM E592 MILLION TO E1.77BN

MBABANE – When the RSTP’s two projects began in 2015, their estimated cost stood at E592.87 million.

The Times SUNDAY can mention that the actual money spent on the two projects have reached E1.180 billion. This is actual cost – money that has been spent. The current estimated budget costs for the construction of the two science projects and a newly-unveiled third one now amount to E1.775 billion. At initial stage, there were two project components for the Royal Science and Technology Park (RSTP) – the Biotechnology Park at Nokwane fixed at E214 million and the Information Technology Park at Phocweni, whose estimated budget at infancy stage was E378.9 million.

There are now three project components for the RSTP, with the third one being the Disaster Recovery (DR) Site, which the taxpayer is expected to construct at a cost of E388 577 000.
Government obtained a loan of E180 million from the Export-Import (EXIM) Bank of India to build the DR. It is said that government will also discharge public funds to finance the project. It must be said that the estimated budget cost for the Biotechnology Park at Nokwane now stands at E793 635 000, while the estimated budget cost for the IT Park is E592 808 000. The estimated budget cost for the two projects is E1 386 443 000.  With the third project being undertaken in the current financial year, the RSTP science projects are expected to cost E1.7 billion. In consideration of the estimated cost of the three projects and the pricing at initial stage, the costs have increased by E1.1 billion.

A source close to RSTP said there were many factors that contributed to cost escalation, which included the failure to pay contractors on time. At some point, it is said that money released for financing the project ended up paying salaries for civil servants.  The costs of building material also contributed to the cost escalation, according to our sources. “It’s not like certain people within RSTP abused funds,” the source said. When the contractor was not on site, as the project is being undertaken at a very snail’s pace, government continued to incur costs amounting to millions of Emalangeni. “As we delay to finish the project, the costs keep going up,” the source said.   

Complete

Financials show RSTP spent a sum of E576 496 000 on the IT Park at Phocweni as at March 31, 2023. This particular project is reportedly complete now. RSTP, which is under the Ministry of Information, Communication and Technology (ICT), has so far spent E604.3 million for the Biotechnology Park at Nokwane as at March 31, 2023. It is said that the IT project at Phocweni was completed in the financial year 2022/2023. However, the construction of the Biotechnology Park at Nokwane is ongoing. Government has been experiencing sharp increases in costs for the entire project it has been undertaking. They include the construction of the King Mswati III International Airport, International Convention Centre (ICC) and Five-Star Hotel (FISH).

The public enterprise submitted a budget request for E63 million to be utilised in the 2024/2025 financial year for the Nokwane project. This means that government financials for the next financial year will show an increase of actual expenditure for the Biotechnology Park. The costs will increase to E667.3 million.In the current financial year, which began on April 1, 2024, RSTP wants to spend E63.3 million on completion of the Biotechnology Park, including partitioning laboratories at a cost of E50.7 million. The parastatal also wants E12.53 million for outstanding DNA analysis equipment and auxiliaries to support the functioning of the Royal Eswatini Police Service (REPS) at RSTP.    

Regarding the DR Site, which had not been included during the unveiling of the RSTP projects in 2015, it has been found that a sum of E16.7 million was spent on this project in the previous financial year. This newspaper has learnt that RSTP wants to spend E69.4 million on what it termed as detailed designs of the DR facility. This budget was approved.
In the 2021/2022 financial year, the government company spent E11.37 million on a similar project. In the 2024/2025 financial year, RSTP had indicated that it wanted to use E22.52 million from loan funds to support the construction of the discovery site. Consultants will be paid E3.6 million for consultancy services and capacity building. A sum of E1.206 million had been approved in the 2021/2022 financial year for consultancy fees and training.

Restoring

A Disaster Recovery Site, also known as DR, is a location used by an organisation for restoring its IT infrastructure and business-critical operations when a primary production centre is affected by a natural or man-made disaster. It is understood that disaster recovery sites are often built in remote locations so as to ensure that the disaster, which has affected the main site will not affect the secondary site as well. Creating a DR site allows an organisation to continue conducting operations and delivering services without disruption, until the primary location is restored.

Phesheya Dube, the Principal Secretary (PS) in the Ministry of ICT, said Dr Andile Metfula, the Acting CEO at RSTP, could be in a position to respond to questions from this newspaper.Dr Metfula referred enquiries to Senzo Malaza, the Senior Communications Officer, who advised that the issue could be best addressed at ministerial level. RSTP had been asked what actually caused the escalation of costs for the construction, and what projects were currently being funded. They had been asked if the Disaster Recovery Site was a necessity.

Development

Meanwhile, it is understood that the Biotechnology Park is a multipurpose platform for research and development in bio-related technologies, production, marketing and trading.
According to the RSTP, information has become the major factor that ensures companies are able to gain competitive advantage through quick response to customer’s needs. The government company said on its website that the high costs of ICT infrastructure have had a negative bearing on such advantage which has reduced budgets for their core services.
It is said that outsourcing such ICT services through the utilisation of external data centre can come as a solution to such high total cost of ownership.

As a result, the RSTP’s National Data Centre (NDC) was created to provide IT managed services through the provision of advanced technology infrastructure that will enable companies to outsource their ICT functions and services, thus focus the bulk of their effort and budget on the delivery of their core products and services. It is said that research laboratory facilities will support research and development efforts in biotechnology, to optimise the use of natural resources in the kingdom, and facilitate the uptake and commercialisation of that research. RSTP says there would be a focus on medical, industrial and agricultural biotechnology research.

It was initially said that the park would establish partnerships with local university science departments to ensure knowledge generation scientist and engineers. It will also commercialise knowledge in the sense that it says its technology transfer office will assist in finding the best route to market for new biotechnology innovations produced in Eswatini. Therefore, a biotechnology incubator has been set up to provide business and technical services for start-up biotechnology companies. The companies that are still in the initial development stage of their business will house the business centre.

It is also said that the Biotechnology Park will provide platforms to showcase, at global and national level, innovations in Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM), especially in the field of biotechnology. RSTP explains that the Biotechnology Park serves as a focal point for various regional bioscience networks, as this will allow more efficient communication between national bioscience practitioners and those networks.

Implored

When officially opening the RSTP in August 2018, His Majesty the King implored the facility to have a target of E10 billion per year, with the ultimate goal of making US$10 billion per annum, the equivalent of E180 billion at the current foreign exchange rate. While programmes have been launched to make the facility fully operational and profitable, it has been learnt that the government entity is currently spending more money than it makes.

What is a disaster recovery site?
A disaster recovery site is a location used by an organisation for restoring its IT infrastructure and business-critical operations when a primary production centre is affected by a natural or man-made disaster. Disaster recovery sites are often built in a remote location so as to ensure that the disaster which has affected the main site will not affect the secondary site as well.
Creating a DR site allows an organisation to continue conducting operations and delivering services without disruption, until the primary location is restored.

Types of disaster recovery sites
The experts in IT say there are three types of backup sites; cold sites, warm sites and hot sites.

Cold site
A cold site is a backup facility with little or no hardware equipment installed. A cold site is essentially an office space with basic utilities such as power, cooling system, air conditioning and communication equipment, etc. A cold site is the most cost-effective option among the three disaster recovery sites.  However, due to the fact that a cold site doesn’t have any pre-installed equipment, it takes a lot of time to properly set it up so as to fully resume business operations. In case of a disaster, an organisation would require help from IT personnel to migrate necessary servers and make them functional in order to take on the workload of the primary site.

Hot site
A hot site is a backup facility which represents a mirrored copy of the primary production centre. A hot site is equipped with all the necessary hardware, software and network connectivity, which allows the company to perform near real-time backup or replication of the critical data. This way the production workload can be failed over to a DR site in a few minutes or hours, thus ensuring minimal downtime and zero data loss. A hot site is expected to be always online and running without disruption, so as to ensure data synchronisation between the sites. It is the most expensive option among the three.

Warm site
A warm site is considered the middle ground between the cold site and the hot site. A warm site is a backup facility that has the network connectivity and the necessary hardware equipment already pre-installed.  However, a warm site cannot perform on the same level as the production centre because they are not equipped in the same way. Therefore, a warm site has less operational capacity than the primary site. Moreover, data synchronisation between the primary and the secondary sites is performed daily or weekly, which can result in minor data loss. A warm site is perfect for organisations which operate with less critical data and can tolerate a short period of downtime. This type of a DR site is the second most expensive option.

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