OWN CORRESPONDENT, Johannesburg | Wednesday 6.45pm.
A BI-NATIONAL consortium of South African and Swazi construction companies, led by Grinaker and Wilson Bayley Homes, was on Wednesday awarded a R342,4-million contract to construct the Magugu Dam in Swaziland.
Magugu is the second of seven planned dams on the Komati and Lomati rivers in Swaziland and Mpumalanga currently being built by the Komati Basin Water Authority (Kobwa).
Announcing the award on Wednesday, Kobwa chief executive Robin Clanahan said that that the construction programme is very tight, with plans to begin filling the dam by November 2000. Kobwa hopes to store significant water during the 2001 wet season and would begin regulating water to downstream farmers and other agriculture later in the same year. The bulk of the construction workforce will recruited from the local Nkomazi community.
The project will be jointly funded by the Development Bank of Southern Africa (DBSA), the Swaziland Public Services Pension Fund and direct contributions from the two countries’ governments The winning consortium, Komati Dam Joint Venture, is made up of Grinaker, Wilson Bayley Homes, Group 5, LTA and the Swaziland Contractors’s Association. — African Eye News Service