The cost of building an official residence for Kenya's Vice-President has doubled to Sh383 million after the original contractor was fired for delays and poor workmanship.

The Ministry of Public Works' defence for the new estimate is that prices for cement, paint and labour have increased by about 75 per cent since 2005. Unfortunately, and predictably, this is incompetent. Even if it were true that prices had risen that quickly since 2005 -- and it is not clear that it has -- a rapid rise in inflation was entirely predictable. Both 2005 and 2007 were election years, and everyone old enough to vote knows that an election year brings an increase in the supply of cash. It can't be too hard, therefore, to make plans to beat this; especially since the government is the stronger party in a contractsituation where so much money is at stake. That it didn't lock the contractorinto favourable terms is evidence of negligent use of public funds.

That impression is strengthened by the fact that theMinistry itself admits that the initial contractor has so far done a shoddyjob; and by the completely unnecessary extravagance of the project.

The housing plan now includes:

staff houses, security house, caretaker's house, pump house and landscaping....[whereas] the first contract [only] covered construction of the main house, guest house, an office block, a gazebo, swimming pool and a garage.

We're told that the

....seven-bedroom house will come complete with a swimming pool, a paved car park for 30 vehicles and a gazebo where the Vice-President Kalonzo Musyoka, assuming it is completed during his tenure, can host barbecues for his guests

Again, we're told that KES 17 million has been set aside for plumbing and drainage works; KES 7 million for drilling a borehole; KES 6.4million for landscaping; and KES 60 million for civil works. There's a further KES 2 million for connecting electricity; the Nation reports that this is already on site, however, the government's defence is that the initial electricity supply was temporary, and this time it'll be permanent. While a generator had already been purchased, the government argues that an extra KES 3 million is necessary to "install, test and commission" said generator. There doesn't appear to be a pressing reason for the fresh additions to an already very grand house, especially not at these prices, and most especially not when the Kenyan economy is attempting to recover from the disaster of 2007/8. While there are IDPs still living in tents and a prevailing drought that has left thousands of Kenyans starving, it is difficult to see why we should let the Vice-President have 17 million bob worth of toilets.

The initial contractor, Dimken, whose workmanship is now being questioned, has sought arbitration implying that it will challenge the government's claims. The Ministry of Public Works claims that the work is shoddy; which is its explanation for repurchasing materials that had first been bought at the initial construction of the house. The house is already roofed, but is to be re-roofed; the story is that the present roof is 'defective and unsatisfactory'. But if that's the case, then there has been serious negligence or deliberate corruption, and whichever it is, legal consequences ought to follow. As the Nation reports,there were weekly inspections of the site:

While the ministry is quiet on why taxpayers are footing the bill for failure by the engineers to supervise the construction, minutes seen by the Nation show that there was a resident engineer and a site clerk whose job was to ensure that the construction was done in line with the specifications. The minutes also show that the ministry technical team used to visit the site on Thursdays.

If these weekly inspections managed to miss as severe a fault as defective roofing, then the site clerk should be held accountable. Further, the money already paid to the previous contractor for the house should be recoverable -at least the part paid for the roofing. If it can't be, that's clear evidence that the contract was incompetently handled, and such severe negligence where serious public cash is concerned shouldn't go unpunished.

But while Kenyans are capable of staggering and extended incompetence; it's rather more likely that the project is being kept going to allow politically connected contractors to benefit from the public purse.

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