Berea __ The Department of Roads Directorate was engaged into a one-day workshop staged at Teyateyaneng on Friday with stakeholders with the aim to discuss and get their input on the issues to consider on contractors’ categorization for work efficiency and quality on roads infrastructure projects.

According to Roads Directorate Corporate Communications Manager, Ms. Nosizolo Mpopo said their key mandate is planning, construction, maintenance of roads, bridges and footbridges, therefore and as per their establishing legislating Road Directorate Act of 2010; they are also mandated to categorize and assess road contractors and to keep register and database of such contractors to distribute it to their key stakeholders which construct roads.

Ms. Mpopo said they have recently reviewed their contractor’s categorization guidelines and they have included the contractor’s performance tracking and assessment.

She said with the availability of the tool, their stakeholders who always engage such contractors in their respective projects; they should be able to have information about their performance in previous projects.

Additionally, she highlighted that with such performance assessment will be able to inform the categorization of the contractor exercise they are doing as Roads Directorate, moreover it will also help them to devise some capacity building programmes which will enhance the contractor’s growth and protect them against international competition.

She highlighted that for a long time, on categorization exercise they have been looking for the contractor’s capability by considering parameters such as their financial muscle, technical capability, but with this initiative they call upon the sister agencies which interacts directly with the contractors to unite and get their input so that they can consolidate a final document.

She said through this initiative, their primary goal is to strive towards improving the performance of contractors and to enhance quality on roads infrastructure projects, adding that they will be able to categorize contractors relative to their performance on previous projects.

Currently they have categorized contractor in five classes being A as big contractors up E as new contractors, therefore it is through the performance assessment and tracking which will position them to the right category, whereas they used to apply using completion certificates of the completed work without deeply looking at the magnitude and quality of work they have completed.

When approached for a comment, the Ministry of Local Government, Chieftainship, Home Affairs and Police, Chief Engineer, Mr. Moka Namoli said the meeting has been very resourceful and it is going to help them improve their respective contractors and promote quality at the road’s projects.

Mr. Namoli said through this contractor’s categorization, it is also going to help them engage the contractor relatively to their performance rather than picking a person only because of being awarded a tender, adding that with this strategy it is going to promote growth to their local contractors.

The meeting was made up of representation from the Maseru City Council (MCC), Ministry of Local Government, Lesotho Electricity Company (LEC), Lesotho Highlands Development Authority (LHDA) and Lesotho National Development Corporation (LNDC).

Meanwhile, the plan is to pilot the contractor’s categorization initiative during the next financial year and among the key performance indicators to consider in performance indicators for tracking the contractor includes, looking for quality of work delivered, management, schedule, costs, safety and environment.

On the other hand, the similar workshop is scheduled to take place on Monday by targeting the local contractors.