Dept secretary concerned about renovation costs

THE implementation and rural development department has already spent K1.5 million on the refurbishment of the rented office building it currently occupy, says Secretary Aihi Vaki.
He told The National on Monday that he was concerned about the amount of public funds already spent on renovation work.
“We spent K1.5 million on the building maintenance and other facilities using government funds (so that it is) well equipped,” Vaki said.
“The Government has to reclaim the money from the landlord because nothing was here when we moved in 1998.
“The building itself was empty with no office equipment and ICT infrastructure.”
Vaki said the department has added value to the building and the landlord had ignored requests to make improvements to it.
He said the department’s role was to facilitate, coordinate and monitor service improvement programme funds for provinces and districts, plus the constitutional grants for provinces and districts.
That function will be greatly affected by the proposed re-location of the department, he said.
Vaki has written to the Government office allocation committee secretariat seeking an extension to the date of the re-location.
He also requested more than K800,000 to buy information communication technology equipment and infrastructure for their new office at the Twin Tower buildings.
“There is no point in moving when that building has not been done up well,” he said.