VELOS IS OUR VERY OWN COMPANY GUYS!
By Shalala Oliver Sepiso
Yesterday, our friends in PF came up with two lies about the Ndola-Lusaka Dual Carriageway project and the shortlisting done by RDA. Firstly they said Velos is a South African company associated with the UPND. Secondly that Casilli’s company was chosen because he is friends with Bally or that he funded UPND.
In this posting let me address Velos. I will later in the day address Casilli and even later AVIC.
The reality is that Velos Enterprises Ltd is a Zambian construction company. The company website states that Velos was founded in 1975 and is “”Zambia’s leading Construction Company. It says it is a local Zambian company with all its directors permanently resident in Zambia.
Over the past years, Velos has been working in all parts of Zambia on Construction projects ranging from Schools, to Housing, through to industrial buildings.
A casual perusal of their website and their Facebook page showed me that they have done the following projects: the Standard Charted Bank HQ building as part of Novare Central Project on Addis Ababa Drive at the cost of US$ 30,000,000.00, Leopards Hill Shopping Mall aka Bauleni Shopping Centre where The Cartel is at a cost of US$ 8,000,000.00, Bonanza Golf Resort at a cost of USD 20,000,000.00 including the Protea Hotel Bonanza Project at the cost of US$ 28,000,000.00, Pinnacle Mall Kabulonga at US$ 14,000,000.00, Novare Great North Shopping Mall at US$ 21,500,000.00, Twin Palm Mall at US$ 7,000,000.00, Kawambwa Housing Project, Chichele Presidential Lodge, Kazembe District Hospital in Luapula Province, Nchelenge District Hospital near the shores of the beautiful Lake Mweru, and Mambwe District Hospital site near Mfuwe town. It has also done works for Spar Zambia, Baobab College, Hitachi, SDV Bollore in Chingola, ZESCO substations, Melissa Supermarket, Toyota Zambia Nangwenya Showroom at US$5,200.246.00 and FNB HQ at Acacia Park at $500,000.00.
Velos also constructed the Mosi-ou-Tunya Square Shopping Mall in Livingstone and Barotse Mall in Mongu.
I also remember from my memory that Velos is the company which constructed Protea Hotel Mulungushi Towers at a cost of USD12,000,000 and Protea Lusaka, who are both at Arcades Mall, also done by Velos at US $8.5M. In fact the company’s offices are located in the Office Suite on the 8th floor of Protea Hotel Lusaka at Arcades Mall, as a result.
Now is this the profile of a firm that is to be associated with UPND? No. Aracdes was opened by Mwanawasa, many projects were done in Sata and RB times and yet more were done under ECL. Its a Zambian company. The bulk of the money they make off the Dual-Carriageway will remain in Zambia.
The interesting thing is that our PF friends, who sing songs that UPND are puppets of the West and give business for foreigners, yesterday and today, switched to singing that on this Ndola Dual carriageway, this Zambian company should not get the business. They are not singing their usual anthem of supporting local suppliers so we can keep all the money within the country. They have been advocating for contracts to be given to Zambians that are capable. This is now happening on this road and they are still complaining. Finshi mufwaya!
This is a competent firm which you hired as PF many times. Besides lets empower our very own people if they win the bid.
Oh by the way, they have road construction experience. In these malls and projects they do, there are many roads they have done with bituminous standards. Road design is done by RDA and supervision can be done by others. Besides they can also sub-contract others where need be.