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“I am very happy to announce that by Saturday evening, 13 000 cubic metres of water had been pumped from Mtshabezi Dam. The dam has the capacity to supply 17 000 cubic metres to Bulawayo everyday,” said Dr Nkomo.
He alleged that AC Controls technicians had primed generators to explode on being switched on, after being fired. This, the minister claimed would have killed people if experts had not detected what he said was a booby trap.
AC Controls officials reached yesterday could not respond to Dr Nkomo’s claims of incompetence and attempted sabotage.
The company had been failing to synchronise generators meant to drive pumps at Mtshabezi since October.
“We are convinced that technicians from AC Controls of Harare did not know what they were doing. I can only sum up this as nothing but sabotage of the highest order. They hoped that if they connect this wire and this wire, things would work. Because of the desperate measures we are applying now, we had to take engineers from Salin, those who are doing Tokwe Mukorsi Dam,” said Dr Nkomo.
He said the Salin engineers had been at Mtshabezi for the past week, but AC Controls had been refusing to hand over the project.
“They were not cooperating; they were arrogant and rude. And they would lock them outside the gate,” said the Minister.
Dr Nkomo said an expert from Pakistan detected what the minister alleged was a “booby trap” allegedly designed by AC Controls to explode the generators on being switched on.
“We asked them to take off their wires and we brought in an expert, a real expert from Pakistan. They did not take things off and if these guys, the experts, had not come and looked at what they said they had taken off or undone, and started those generators, we would have had dead bodies as it would have exploded,” he said.
Dr Nkomo said his ministry had also directly contracted a Bulawayo company, Tendon Electrical Engineers to work with the experts to undo what AC Controls had done.
“The people of Bulawayo want water. We could not continue with these AC people just because they were appointed by the State Procurement Board. I want water. There is a Cabinet circular that gives me the power. It says for any contract below $1 million, we can go ahead and hire. I am happy to have exercised the option that is available to me as a result of the Cabinet circular,” he said.
Contacted for comment AC Controls managing director, Ms Felistus Makumbinde, initially denied that the company had been fired from the project, but later said it was not true that the company had booby trapped generators. “We tested them in front of Zinwa engineers before handing them over. If they had been tampered with, they would have exploded then,” said Ms Makumbinde.
She said failure by AC Controls to finish the project in time was the client’s fault.
“Their design called for a one megavolt generator, which we supplied. However it was too small to start up the generators. They had not stated that they needed a synchronisable generator, so we had to do it on site. This increased the lead time of the project. Unfortunately, the client got impatient, just as we were about to finish,” she said.
In the dismissal letter to AC Controls, Minister Nkomo detailed numerous promises and deadlines that the company had made but missed.
In the letter, the minister said the Zimbabwe National Water Authority (Zinwa) and other stakeholders had made promises to the city of Bulawayo based on “false” information supplied by AC Controls.
“You have not been giving any clear answer as to when you are going to complete the synchronisation.
“This means you have failed to synchronise and you are not sure about what to do and when you will complete. Due to the urgency of the task at hand, to pump water to the Bulawayo City Council without fail, we unfortunately have no time to do trial and error on a commodity that is water that is critically required by the people. In this regard, we are left with no option but to look for other options,” read part of the letter.
“You are therefore requested to stop any work on the generators with immediate effect today on Wednesday 12 December 2012,” read the letter, in which AC Controls was also instructed to return the three generators to their original state.
They were also required to return the generators to Zinwa, after testing them in the presence of experts. AC Controls refused to work with a third party to connect the generators.
Dr Nkomo distanced himself from a plan to perform traditional rites at Mtshabezi.
“I am a Christian and I do not believe in those things. Whoever wants to do it can go ahead but I cannot officiate in things like that. Those who believe in that, I respect them, but cannot be part to that,” he said.
Two Bulawayo supply dams, Upper Ncema and Umzingwane have already been decommissioned. A third, Inyankuni, is likely to follow early next year.
Sidumisile Mabena