The Ministry of transport confirmed the reports and said that Zhong Gan Engineering and Construction (Pty) Ltd, China Jiangsu International Botswana (Pty) Ltd and Unik Construction Engineering (Pty) Ltd Joint Venture were contracted to design, build and transfer the interchanges.
The signed contract is part of Botswana Integrated Transport Project (BITP) whose main objective is to improve efficiency of the transport system by building modern business management capacity while enhancing the strategic planning aspects of inter-regional transport and critical transport infrastructure.
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Improve traffic flow in the greater Gaborone
The permanent secretary pointed out that unlike the previous contractors, the government would do things differently. Kabelo Ebineng, the ministry’s permanent secretary said that the contractors are expected to finish on time, fulfill the objectives and stick to the budget.
“We are confident that the contractors will deliver an innovative state of the act product on time and on budget and within the scope of our specifications, “Mr. Ebineng stated. The project that begun last month has a fixed construction period of 24 months.
The BITP project will improve traffic flow in the greater Gaborone through the interchanges. It will also contribute to urban traffic improvement and installation. Although traffic is expected during the construction process, the permanent secretary and Tang Jie, the Administrative Manager-Zhong Gan Engineering & Construction assured the public that they would try to minimize traffic as much as possible.
The US $385.2m project is funded by the Government of Botswana (GoB), the International Bank for Reconstruction and Development (IBRD)/ World Bank and OPEC Fund for International Development (OFID). World Bank and OFID’s contributions are in form of loans of US $186m and US $40m respectively and US $159.2m financed by the Botswana Government.
