Malawi Government is withholding last  payment for some contractors who were faulted for poor quality work when  constructing houses for medical workers under the Umoyo Housing Project, Weekend Nation has learnt.

Weekend Nation

has learnt that government is withholding the remaining  five percent payments for contractors who are yet to rectify defects such as  cracks and leakages in the houses they constructed several years ago.

In his submission to the Public Accounts  Committee (PAC) ofParliament, Principal Secretary for Ministry of Health Dr.  Charles Mwansambo says poor workmanship on the houses mainly resulted from  inadequate capacity of the ministry’s project’s implementation unit(PIU) to  monitor implementation of the first phase of the project.

The first phase of the project targeted  construction of 250 new medical staff houses and rehabilitation of another 250  old houses.

“In all the sites where defects were not  corrected, contractors have not been paid their retention money which is  equivalent to five percent of their contract,” reads Mwansambo’s  submission.

Auditor General’s findings for the  financial year ended June 2011 revealed that most of the completed houses under  the project developed cracks and started leaking shortly after completion and  that construction work on some laboratories was abandoned before  completion.

“This showed lack of seriousness on the  part of the Ministry of Health and the hired consultants as they did not make  regular monitoring visits to check the progress and quality of construction  works and materials used at the project sites,” reads the report of the  auditfindings.

Mwansambo said the ministry’s PIU had no  staff during the 2008/09financial year, saying the ministry relied on a  coordination unit under their planning department which, he said, failed to  monitor implementation of the project effectively.

“The process of creating a fully staffed  and operational coordination unit was slow and with lack of proper handovers  from the previous PIU team, the ministry had no full capacity in monitoring all  the projects and heavily relied on private consultants. The poor handovers also  created gaps in the smooth transition of projects and general  documentation.

“In addition, the DHOs were not involved  in the supervision and oversight of the project activities. As a result, the  workmanship was of low quality,” reads Mwansambo’ssubmission.