27 Jun 2024

Government is set to undertake major refurbishment of Athlone Hospital in Lobatse aimed at addressing the hospital’s dilapidated condition which has drawn complaints from the public for a long time.

In his address to a full council meeting on Tuesday, Lobatse mayor, Mr Mosimanegape Dithebe explained that the project would be implemented through the Development Manager model (DM) introduced by government to accelerate delivery of quality projects.

Mr Dithebe pointed that the project scope entailed refurbishment of existing facilities, construction of a new theatre, new staff houses, public toilets, and a new accident and emergency unit.

“The inception report has been approved and the project has advanced to stage two (which is) concept and viability study. To date the architects in the project has mobilised personnel to the project for detailed design to meet the client scope,” he said.

He told councillors that Pro-Serve Consulting Botswana was appointed by the Ministry of Transport and Public Works as Development Manager (DM) for the project and two other major projects in the town, being construction of Lobatse Leather Park and construction of 53 staff houses for police officers.

Pro-Serve project manager Mr Victor Mokwape explained his company would provide a turnkey of services from inception up to delivery of the three projects.

Concerning the Athlone Hospital project, Mr Mokwape said they had already completed the pre-feasibility study. He said they were now on the concept and viability stage, which entailed development of the plan in terms of how the project would look like.

“Currently in terms of progress we are sitting at 15 per cent. We are busy preparing what we call the maximum guarantee price, which evidently is the construction cost or development cost for the project.

Currently we are experiencing just minor challenges which we are liaising with the end user because the hospital is a live site, so we need to plan accordingly to ensure that by the time we are ready to break ground on site we have put necessary measures in place to allow them to move in order to allow us to continue our work,” he said.

He pointed that their architects and engineers were conducting site assessment at Athlone Hospital.

Regarding the Lobatse Leather Park, Mr Mokwape said progress of the project was at 7.5 per cent. He said the project was slightly delayed because it was in a Special Economic Zone and involved a lot of stakeholders.

He said they had visited the site of the project and needed to have discussions with various stakeholders involved in the project and have clarity of the scope of works.

“Currently we are preparing stage one report or the inception report,” he said.

Maokaneng Ward councilor, Ms Tiny Dinoko was happy about the move to include the Athlone Hospital refurbishment under DM model. Ms Dinoko expressed hope that would lead to quality implementation of the project.

Tsopeng North councillor, Mr Otlaabusa Keorapetse asked for preservation of historical aspects of the hospital when carrying out refurbishment works. ENDS