Luapula province Permanent Secretary Charles Mushota has attributed the high number of public infrastructure being brown-off by strong winds in Luapula to use of wrong specifications and poor supervision in some cases.
Eng. Mushota says it was time the province starts treating all public infrastructure as commercial buildings and ensure that those assigned to come up with designs do not compromise on standard specifications.
He observed that poor specifications at design level leads to use of wrong build materials that compromise the strength of the structure.
A number of structures especially schools have had their roofs brown off due to the wrong specifications when it comes to the gauge of the roofing sheets.
“Materials such as mortise locks and hand wash basins fitted in a commercial buildings cannot be the same like those used in a private home, but sadly I have seen fittings meant for private homes being used in commercial buildings,” Eng. Mushota pointed out.
The PS was speaking during the Senior Management Meeting following a submission by the Disaster Management Unit (DMMU) Provincial Coordinator Abel Mwape yesterday.
Stressing that his unit was overwhelmed by the number of disasters being recorded in the province, Mr Mwape told the meeting that according to a joint assessment done together with the Department of Public Infrastructure on Mwense and Nchelenge Secondary schools which were recently battered by hail storms, they requires about K4.6m to fix the damage.
And Public Infrastructure Officer Eng. Morris Bwalya has noted with sadness that a number of new public structures which were coming up in the province had some wrong specifications in the designs.
Eng. Bwalya has since appealed to those who come up with designs not to be compromising on standards specification in order to come up with good infrastructure.
He added that bids equally needed to be scrutinized for the pricing of each item to avoid compromising on the quality of materials to be used. According to the DMMU data base, the province requires about K38m to attend to 41 primary schools, six secondary schools, six community schools, six health posts, 72 households, 31 staff houses and 283 crossing points that have been affected by hail storms.
