An evaluation of the citizen contractor development component of the citizen empowerment policy in Botswana
Date
2010-03-18T07:45:36Z
Authors
Kobole, Shadrack Chilume
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Abstract
The Government of Botswana, since independence in 1966 has initiated several
schemes in a bid to support and development its local construction Industry. In 1975
the Government established Botswana Enterprises Development Unit (BEDU) with
the assistance of international donor agencies. The Government realised that
sustainable development would based on meaningful participation of citizens in
private sector, by engaging in greater agricultural production, by increasingly become
engaged as businessmen in trade, in manufacturing and I providing an expanding
services. BEDU was responsible for introducing the then new concept of local
entrepreneurship.
Development of local human resource and localisation was one of the priority
objectives of the Botswana Enterprises Development Programme. In 1975 BEDU
replicated Kenya’s NCC (National Construction Corporation) a small contractor
development agency, just like the Kenyan NCC BEDU did not achieve much of the
set objectives.
In the 1980’s the Government of Botswana formulated preferential schemes that
favoured and protect citizen contractor against foreign construction companies.
Despite government‘s commitment to citizen contractor empowerment, there have
been reports of poor performance by citizen contractors. Between 2001 and 2005, 93
per cent of public projects undertaken by citizen contractors had cost and time
overruns, 16 per cent of the 187 projects investigated had been abandoned. The
Government had to spend over P 70, 000,000:00 (seventy million Pula) to get these
projects completed by others. There is strong evidence that Botswana as a
developing country has a potential of utilising the infrastructure development projects
for the benefit of socio-economic development by engaging meaningful participation
of citizen in the construction industry. The existing available data was analysed as an
attempt to establish the cause of failure and what should be done to improve the
prevailing situation.
iii
The Literature review has revealed good examples of countries that have embarked
on a long-term indigenous construction industry development as national project and
have successfully achieved their set objectives. Botswana can learn from countries
such as Singapore, Malaysia and its neighbouring state South Africa on how to set
up an appropriate Construction development programme.