Indicative construction costs great initiative

The minister responsible for the sector, Prof Makame Mbarawa has directed the National Construction Council (NCC) to oversee the work, which means those costs shall be used in public works generally, especially for roads, bridges and buildings. That the country has had no standard quotations in that sector speaks a lot about the sort of laxity that has prevailed for decades easily because it facilitates fat pay cheques.

This initiative is a reflection of the no-nonsense approach of the fifth phase government on reigning in wasteful use of government revenues, where wild estimates as to what it costs to build a road are at times noticeable, though to be sure efforts have been made in the past to check the habit. At one time an MP (who had once served as deputy minister for Finance) Kilontsi Mporogomyi wondered why it takes $500 in Zambia to build one kilometer of road and $1900 in Tanzania to do the same work. As that observation was heard on a broadcasting outlet, it is unclear if there are proper comparative studies or enumeration of reasons for such discrepancies.

It is entirely possible that the situation at present isn’t as bad as when the former deputy minister spoke in the House, but it is also true that United Nations agencies have experience with how to work with governments all over the world. There are at times dedicated individuals who battle the currents of corruption but in swimming against the tide, may put their own careers at stake if they are routinely blacklisted by host governments.  In addition each country that is a United Nations member state had in principle a voice, and when a UN agency is carrying out a project in that country, it has the right to supervise that project on the basis of membership, not as a client.

Still it must be said that UN agencies look at a country’ habits and practices in the face and then adapts accordingly, such that if a country condones corruption it isn’t up to the UN to call a stop to such habits, and instead it will direct its efforts, and rhetoric, to palpable government efforts to ‘build capacity’ for internal controls, etc. That is why the remarks from the former deputy minister were a bit surprising as Zambia is not heralded as a country that has made glittering progress in fighting corruption in comparison with neighbouring countries, but if that report was true it would be remarkable. Governance determines how far costs are controlled or spiral wildly.

While a determination of costs for constructing particular roads or buildings helps in planning by being sure of kilometer worth of allocations, it may also help to bring about organisational change where construction can be done on bank credit and be repaid with interest. In a situation of undetermined construction costs where each accounting authority makes its own estimates, no credit base can exist as stakeholders gain by working out fictitious sums with relevant authorities and share out excess funds. In like manner a company may deliberately fail to finish planned work and ask for more funds, as no accounting premise exists for what it precisely takes to finish the work. Despite that many accounting authorities played along, others were just pushed to incline when incidents of the sort occurred for lack of gazetted, authoritative basis for quotations.