Khato Civils Celebrates Completion Of 65 Water Chambers

Avideo clip emerged last week on the Khato Civils Facebook page as the company’s boss Simbi Phiri, standing on a water chamber with his project team, celebrated the completion of the construction of all the 65 water chambers by December 1, 2020. Construction of water chambers is considered a key instalment as completing it so early gives realistic hopes that the project, to be completed within 12 months, is on its way to being delivered on time. In particular the water chambers consume large quantities of cement, yet the commodity has become scarce and expensive in the country in recent days due to coronavirus (COVID-19) challenges.

In a video interview Phiri also revealed that they have completed trenching as well as successfully laying 30km pipes, while 75% of all the pipes needed for the project are already in the country, with expectation to have increased them to 80% by end of this month.

This is all thanks to an effective pipe manufacturing plant, which Khato Civils and the Water Utilities Corporation collaborated on to set up in Johannesburg, specifically for the project, at a time when pipe supplies from overseas presented a huge stumbling block owing to pandemic restrictions. Aptly named rock-eaters, Khato Civils’ revolutionary machinery had been able to complete trenching within two months in what would have ordinarily taken two and a half years or three years to complete with the traditional excavators.

The trenchers can cover two kilometres a day, and with four of them deployed, allowing Khato Civils to cover a maximum of eight kilometres a day. According to Phiri, they could have finished trenching within 30 days had it not been for the limitations brought about by the sizes of the machinery, which resulted in them doing repeat trenching for purposes of widening the trenches to accommodate the large sizes of the pipes.

“So, we hope that in our next trenching, if we have to get another job, we will bring in a twometre wide trencher, meaning we do it just once; so we could have trenched probably in one calendar month (30 days). We could have done the whole Masama to Gaborone.

“But it’s a very exciting technology. It’s quick. The machine is able to adjust itself to the level of depths that you want it to do; and I think that the way to go in making construction much faster, anybody who is going to lay pipes not using a trencher, I don’t think you’ll be in business. I think everybody who is in this business should go at trenching. I think trenching is the way. Look, we were supposed to blast 27km of rock, but we trenched 24km and did only three kilometres of rock blasting.” “Any construction company would hire the trenchers for speedy delivery and I think even the clients, they should demand that it (trenching) be the technical requirement, otherwise projects like this one could take years and cost [even] more.”

Phiri estimates that at the rate they are going, when they resume in January they would be continuing with the remaining stretch of pipe laying, which they anticipate to be completed by end of February. “Really, by mid-February we will be finishing up the pipe jacking activities, which are already in progress.

We have to pipe jack on the railway systems; in some areas we have roads that we have to pipe jack, so it should be done by probably mid-February. So, once we are done in mid-February, then March it’s really testing it. Then they should have the water by April, 2022.”

“There’ll be water flowing from Masama around the end of March, because it takes a while; so we have to pump for about two to three weeks to a month. Pumping water and fine tuning; maybe there’ll be a leak here and there, so we correct all of that, and then from there, in terms of the system, it should be providing water to Gaborone [city] and southern parts of [Greater] Gaborone.”