The construction cost of Mzuzu civic offices has gone up by K5.1 billion, Mzuzu City Council (MCC) has confirmed.
Initially, the five-storey structure was pegged at K12.1 billion, but a recent revision has hiked the cost to about K17.28 billion.
MCC Public Relations Manager Macdonald Gondwe said the contractor, Plem Construction, asked for a cost adjustment due to an increase in prices of construction materials, both on the local and international market.
Gondwe said the council consulted the government on the proposal, which was approved and that, so far, there has been considerable progress on the project.
“There are many factors that have contributed to the adjustment, but the most common one is that prices of materials in the construction industry have gone up.
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“We reported to our financier, which is the Central Government, about the contractor’s request and they accepted,” Gondwe said.
He added that, overall, physical progress is at 45 percent and that the project is expected to be completed by 2025.
However, Centre for Social Accountability and Transparency Executive Director Willy Kambwandira expressed fear that the contractor could be taking advantage of the current economic volatility in raising the project cost.
Kambwandira also said that it may be possible that the contractor submitted unrealistic low bids with the intent to inflate the project budget after bring granted the contract.
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“This must be sufficiently probed. There is a need for an independent and transparent review of the revised budget,” Kambwandira said.
The civic offices will have two wings, one with three storeys and the other with six.
In recent days, several contractors have been asking for hikes in contract prices apparently due to the rise in prices of commodities on the market following the devaluation of the Kwacha.
Last month, Parliamentary Committee on Transport and Public Infrastructure Chairperson Enock Phale said his committee would visit the Marka-Bangula railway project site following reports that the works required an additional K27 billion.
The additional cost came following a directive that Transport and Public Works Minister Jacob Hara had given during a meeting on July 31 2023, according to a confidential memo originating from the ministry’s principal secretary responsible for administration Madalo Nyambose.
According to the memo, the increase in the project cost is caused by two main factors, namely results of soil investigation surveys for the existing railway alignment and the effects of cyclones Ana, Gombe and Freddy.
