Over 250 Zambian Contractors have been nominated for sub-contracting under the Zambia township roads project -ZTRP- 300 in Kitwe district on the Copperbelt Province.

Confirming the development to Phoenix News in Ndola, Consortium of Local Contractors and Allied Suppliers president John Chilupula says the consortium will come up with a criteria on how best it will exhaust the money allocated for subcontracting in the 3 districts namely Kitwe, Mufulira and Chingola.

Mr. Chilupula further disclosed that chingola district alone has an excess of US$8 million reserved for Local Contractors.
Last week government released us US$59 million for the construction of roads on the Copperbelt Province that had stalled due to lack of funding.

The construction industry has been one of the fastest growing industries in Zambia from 2010 to 2014, recording an average contribution of about 9.9 percent of National Gross Domestic Product.

However, there has been an imbalance in the distribution of works between local and foreign contractors.

The foreign contractors, who account for less than 20 percent of registered contractors, have a share of over 80 percent of the works contracts.

This has been attributed to inadequate financial and technical capacity among local contractors. In order to enhance the capacities and participation of local contractors in construction sector, Government of Zambia in 2012 introduced a 20 percent mandatory subcontracting policy.

And the National Council for Construction has threatened to blacklist foreign contractors failing to implement the twenty percent sub contraction to local contractors.

Phoenix FM News