ZRA to refurbish Kariba spillway control facility

THE Zambezi River Authority (ZRA) says it plans to use part of proceeds of the Kariba Rehabilitation Project to pay refurbishment of the Kariba Dam spillway upstream control facility.

According to a ZAR Specific Procurement Notice (SPN), there would be works to improve the operation and prevent potential failure of the spillway control facility.

An SPN is a follow up of a General Procurement Notice for invitation to bid, prepared by the borrower in consultation with the bank, which gives detailed information on a particular contract of a project under International Competitive Bidding.

“The ZRA has received loans and grants from the African Development Bank, the Swedish government and the World Bank’s International Development Association (IDA), towards the cost of implementing the Kariba Dam Rehabilitation Project. It intends to apply part of the proceeds of these loans and grants to payments under the contract for the Refurbishment of the Kariba Dam Spillway Upstream Control Facility,” it said.

ZRA added that, it intended to pre-qualify contractors and or firms for supply, installation and commissioning of a temporary cofferdam, new emergency gate, new maintenance stop beams, related civil works on the embedded parts, new gantry crane and related civil works including new concrete beam for upstream rail and electrical works for the mentioned equipment.

It said bidding would be governed by the World Bank’s eligibility rules and procedures.

“The bidding documents for the procurement of these works will be prepared based on the World Bank’s Standard Bidding Document (April 2015 version) for Works and is based on agreed template between the Multilateral Development Banks and the International Federation of Consulting Engineers and will include amendments to allow the design and procurement of the gantry crane. It is expected that invitations for bids will be made in April, 2017,” ZRA said.

The authority also said pre-qualification would be conducted through use of the World Bank’s Standard Pre-qualification Document for Works July 2106 and pre-qualification procedures specified in the bank’s Guidelines: Procurement under IBRD Loans and IDA credits, January 2011 Revised July 2014 and was open to all bidders from eligible source countries.

Rehabilitation of Kariba Dam, which was supposed to begin in 2015 and was expected to cost $294,2 million, has not yet taken off with expectations that it would now begin this year.

Kariba Dam on the Zambezi River, between Zambia and Zimbabwe, was designed and constructed between 1955 and 1959 by Coyne et Bellier of France and constructed by Salini Impreglio of Italy in two main phases. A recent study suggested that the dam was at risk of collapsing owing to erosion on the bedrock of the spill way and urged for urgent action to avert a major disaster.