Govt parks new office block

THE government has paused its plans to construct a new office complex worth nearly N$1 billion in Windhoek.

Works permanent secretary Willem Goeieman announced in newspapers yesterday that the ministry had decided to cancel the tender with immediate effect because the call for expression of interest did not yield competitive responses to enable the selection of the best companies to tender for the project.

Goeieman told The Namibian yesterday that the project will still return but in an improved manner.

According to him, the ministry is revisiting several things about the proposed new office building.

“We are re-looking at certain things of the project before we allow things to continue. The project is not gone forever but it’s just paused for now,” he said.

The proposed government office building was part of the N$5 billion that the government is planning to spend on buildings in the next five years.

The new offices were supposed to be an addition to the current government offices situated in Luther Street in Windhoek.

Revelations about the latest spending plans come at a time when various ministries are scrambling for their own offices.

In August this year, Goeieman said the decision to invest in a new government park was prompted by the fact that almost all the ministries want office space.

“We are facing a huge problem. Most ministries want offices and our ministry (of works) is the custodian that provides solutions to the requests,” he added.

Although Goeieman declined to provide the exact details of the project, he said it will be big, more or less the same or probably even bigger than the current government office park that already accommodates more than six ministries. In the meantime, the government will splash over N$1 billion in office rent for the next three years with N$360 million going to rentals this year alone.