PRESIDENT Robert Mugabe yesterday bemoaned the inefficiency, delays and lack of commitment by some government officials in implementing public projects, thereby forcing project costs to go up.
NUNURAI JENA OWN CORRESPONDENT
Speaking at the ground-breaking ceremony of the Kariba South Power Station extension project, Mugabe said that attitude had to come to an end as it was costly to the government.
“I, however, would like to observe that implementation of public projects has in the past been characterised by inefficiency, delays and lack of commitment which cumulatively have often compromised the cost-effectiveness of the projects. This cannot be allowed to continue,” Mugabe said.
The project is expected to cost $533 million with the Chinese government having already extended a $320m loan, while the remainder $213m will come from Zimbabwe Power Company borrowings from development finance institutions.
The power station is expected to generate an additional 300 megawatts (MW) for the national grid and entails the construction of an additional two 150MW power-generating units to the current six 125MW generating units.
This will increase the total capacity at the Kariba Hydro Power Station from 750MW to 1 050MW.
The project, which will be completed over four years, will employ a total of 700 people and to date, about 200 workers have been engaged.
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Mugabe later addressed Zanu PF supporters at Kariba Stadium where he castigated Politburo members and provincial chairpersons for interfering in Youth League affairs and lobbying them to vote for particular candidates at last month’s Youth League conference .
“We deliberated yesterday [Wednesday] in the Politburo and saw that there were many irregularities [in the conduct of the Youth League elections], but we said the results should stand but the anomalies should not be repeated in future.”
