NEWS:

12 Sep, 2019


Teaching complex B under construction
The teaching complex B at which is under construction at Bunda College is expected to be completed by November this year, according to The University Registrar of Lilongwe University of Agriculture and Natural Resources, Dr. Phillip Kaonda.

The Registrar made the remarks on Tuesday, 10th September 2019 at Bunda College when a team of Monitoring and Evaluation specialists form the Ministry of Finance and Economic planning visited the institution to check progress of the ongoing construction work at the college.

Speaking during an interface with the Ministry of finance team, Dr. Kaonda said the teaching complex B which is being constructed by Terrastone Limited with funding from the Norwegian government will be ready for use in November 2019.

“The teaching complex B is now at an advanced stage and the contractor has assured us that it will be ready by November this year. So we expect that it will be in used when the students will be coming back for the next academic year,” said Dr. Kaonda.

LUANAR embarked on a massive infrastructure development projects at its campuses to ease the problem of teaching space, working space and accommodation.

The teaching complex B, which has large lecture theatres and laboratories, will boost the delivery of courses at the college which are all sciences and will eventually assist the University in achieving its vision and mission.

“You might wish to know that all our programmes here are sciences but we lacked laboratories to effectively deliver our programmes. So with these facilities, we will be able to effectively deliver our courses.” He said.

Commenting on the other projects, the University Registrar said teaching complex A and the gateway administration block, which had stalled for years are expected to be completed mid next year. He said there were problems to do with the contractor and the contract was terminated.

“We had problems with the previous contractor and we consulted all the relevant stakeholders then we terminated the contract. A new contractor came in May this year and started the work. We have hired a good contractor, (Terrastone limited) and what is needed now is cooperation.” He said.

Dr. Kaonda added that the major challenge that is being faced now is cash flow management. Funds needed to finish the works are 10billion Malawi Kwacha but currently the available funds are 4.5billion Malawi Kwacha. The Registrar then appealed to government to allocate more resources to the projects in order to finish in good time.

During the visit, the team from the Ministry together with LUANAR staff toured the construction sites and a report will be submitted to the minister of finance for vetting and way forward. It is hoped that the information which the team got will help to plan for the next financial year.

Currently, the University is constructing administration block and teaching complex A which are being funded by governmet of Malawi, teaching complex B with funding from Nowergian Government through the Infrastructure Development Programme (IDP), a multipurpose hall with self-generated resources, a business centre, and ODL hub at Bunda college. The University is also constructing and ODL centre in Area 47, Lilongwe. Both the ODL hub and Centre are being constructed with assistance from the World Bank through the Skills Development Programme (SDP).

The new infrastructure being constructed at the college will provide a good learning and working environment to both staff and students of LUANAR and it will ease the problem of lack of teaching and working space.