By DIXON BWALYA

IT has happened again and it will continue to happen in the construction industry and the nation will continue to lose financial resources unless of course, those responsible will someday wake up to carry out a meaningful diagnosis of the problem to resolve this pandemic in the construction industry.
This is because there is really no acceptable excuse at this stage for this continued malaise.
It was in the Monday, October 20, 2014 edition of the print media under the head line “Shoddy Chipata-Lundazi works Sadden Luo.”
Under the story, Professor Nkandu Luo was quoted to have expressed shock that the Chipata-Lundazi Road, which was recently constructed was already in a bad state.
In the story Professor Luo was quoted to have promised to communicate to the minister of transport and works to have the road to be redone and was further quoted to have said “I can tell you that as I was driving here, my first reaction was, so much money has been spent on this road and within a very short period it is already in tatters.
“This is one of the challenges we are facing as a government with our contractors, because some of our contractors are very quick to bid for contracts but they end up doing a shoddy job…I will take back this to Mr Yamfwa Mukanga to ensure that potholes are worked on before they become ditches.”
The essence of the above story is nothing new in the Zambian construction industry and therefore does not come as a complete surprise going by the prevailing modus operandi on most projects in the construction industry and those in authority should not express surprise because there have been a number articles published under this and various other columns meant to educate and sensitise those who may not be in the know about the various possible land mines, potential opportunities for corruption as well as the traditional division of responsibilities in the construction industry which if ignored may lead to shoddy works and loss of the much-needed national financial resources.
The separation of responsibilities enshrined in the traditional way of procuring services in the construction industry was meant to protect not only the sponsors of the construction project but also the general public or third parties expected to be direct or indirect beneficiaries to the construction project and also ensure prudent management of the available resources.
This traditional method of procuring services in the construction industry also made it easy to identify the defaulting party in the service provision chain if anything went wrong as seems to be the case for the constructed Chipata- Lundazi Road as reported in the print media, merely redoing the road without identifying what went wrong in the original adopted procuring method may only lead to further loss of financial resources without necessarily guarantying a better end product upon works being redone.
Just in case you did not read previous articles on this subject, the procurement process starts with the sponsors of the project, in the case of the Chipata-Lundazi Road the sponsors of the project would probably be the Government or its agents who would then describe what they want constructed and to what standards, this set of requirements is sometimes referred to as the brief which may be prepared by the client or sponsors of the project if there is capacity or may be assisted by others with the required capacity expertise.
If the brief is defective in the sense that one specifies a lower grade road, may be because of cost implications when expectations or demands are that of a higher grade then that is what will be delivered and if failure occurs it will not be the fault of the contractor.
When completed the set of requirements or the brief is then given to consultants to form the basis for their design and preparation of tender documents and construction drawings.
The set of tender documents will contain a detailed technical description of the scope of works expected to be executed by the contractor which would comprise sets of drawings, Bills of Quantities (B.O.Q), Specifications and the applicable construction contract to be used and specific to the particular building or construction project.
If the tender documents are defective and defects occur then it will not be the fault of the contractor but possibly that of the consultants who prepared the tender documents.
After preparation of tender documents the next critical stage is the choice of the contractor to execute the works strictly in accordance with the prepared tender documents.
If this process is carried out without much thought or is entrusted to people without adequate technical knowhow then inappropriate and inexperienced contractors may likely be commissioned to carry out the construction works.
If defective works occur and remembering that contractors are business men out to make some money and also recognising the concept of caveat emptor or let the buyer beware the fault for the defects will be to those entrusted with the responsibility of choosing the contractor and not that of the contractor himself.
Again another critical stage in this chain is ensuring that the contractor builds the project strictly in accordance with the consultants tender documents or the stage for contract administration and inspection and the consultants ensuring that payment certificates to the contractor are only for satisfactorily executed works nothing more nothing less.
This is sometimes the most neglected part of this entire process where some clients, in the misplaced attempt to save some money take on this very onerous task instead of engaging competent and committed consultants, they either choose to inspect the works themselves or appoint an employee on their payroll with other commitments to carry out this very important assignment.
If this part of the process of procuring services in the construction process is not given the deserved attention the consequences will include loss of money through payments to contractors for defective works \as well as reduced life span of the project and increased maintenance costs meaning executing less projects than would be the case had the available funds been applied prudently.
In short it does not automatically follow that whenever defects occur on a construction project then it is the fault of the contractor.
If the above process was followed on the construction of the Chipata-Lundazi Road then it is important to find out what and where things went wrong. If the above process was not strictly followed then consideration ought to be given to a change of the way of doing things, if this is ignored then the Government should expect to continue throwing money down the drain.
There seems to be a misplaced opinion in Zambia that every Jim and Jack can execute builders’ works, if you don’t have respect for graduates in the construction industry may be you should pose and reflect; if construction is that simplistic why do professors and masters degree holders spent up to five or more years teaching these graduates in universities?
The advice is free.
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