29 May 2009
editorial
THE construction industry in Zambia is among the most abused sectors of the economy particularly when it involves Government works.
Stories of embezzlement ofGovernment funds for ghost works, incomplete buildings, shoddy workmanship, inflated charges and related vices have been well documented over the decades.
Some of the structures, including roads and buildings that are supposed to have been built by professionals have collapsed with tragic consequences in some cases.
And because of the nature of the construction industry; arguablyone of the most lucrative business undertakings involving billions of kwacha most times, the sector has kept on attracting a lot of players.
This is more so in Governmentworks whichare national in nature and encompass a huge outlay of funding.
By its very nature, the construction industry is supposed to be a major source of employment.
However, owing to underhand methods of operating in many cases, the benefits accruing in the form of employment creation have not materialised.
Cheaper and often ill-qualified labour has been engaged in order to cut overheads and maximise profits.
The Government has had to incur increasing costs because inevitably, several projects have had to be revisited at great expense.
Fora while now, a system to effectively curb this sort of abuse has been missing.
Now that the Government will only award contracts to local contractors who have a good working capacity and whose employment capacity is big enough to enable more Zambians to benefit, the situation should change.
Practitioners in the sector have all to gain in supporting to ensure that the measures that Works and Supply Minister, Mike Mulongoti has outlined come to fruition.
In the first place, the contractors will be in a position to regulate themselves and weed out those that are masquerading.
They would also be able to attain the necessary capacity that the Government would now demand, by pooling resources and forming consortiums among the bonafide operators within the sector.
In this way, the contractors would acquire legitimate grounds upon which to claim a stake in the bigger contracting jobs which they currently purport are only headed in the direction of the bigger foreign contractors.
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