Chao News client correspondent Qin Mingming
Project camps
The Republic of Namibia is located in southwest Africa, north of Angola and Zambia, east of Botswana, south of South Africa, with a land area of 824,000 square kilometers and a population of about 2.6 million people, most of the whole territory is at an altitude of 1000~1500 meters, with perennial drought and little rain, and is a subtropical and semi-desert climate. The capital city of Windhoek is the site of the construction of the Airport Road project in Namibia.
As early as 2008, Zhejiang Jiaogong became a pioneer in overseas business development, from "borrowing a ship to go to sea" to "driving a boat to sea" after the "Belt and Road" cooperation initiative, Zhejiang Jiaogong gradually explored a set of experience applicable to overseas development, and in 2019, Zhejiang Jiaogong's business in the southern African area pointed to Namibia.
Before the project landed, the business staff learned that the country's market share is small, although it has a rich natural landscape and cultural environment, but there are huge difficulties in road construction, lack of labor resources, urgent shortage of water sources, and dependence on imports of materials to enter the site, and the difficulties did not limit the determination of Zhejiang Jiaogong to expand overseas until 2019, the Namibian Airport Road project was successfully signed and landed, and Zhejiang Jiaogong once again lit up a new landmark in Namibia's business map.
The soil at the earthwork site is poor and there is an extreme shortage of water
In November of the same year, Namibia Airport Road project personnel have entered the site, the full name of the project is Namibia Windhoek Airport two-way four-lane upgrade project (2A bid section), the project is a new road project, from Windhoek to Hoshikutako International Airport, the main line is 19.5km long, as an important traffic artery connecting Namibia to the airport and even neighboring countries, the project will greatly improve the current traffic situation after completion, improve the efficiency of local material transportation, so since the project has been carried out, it has attracted the attention of the Namibian government.
Thinking determines the way out, and use communication to break down layers of barriers
Project hard soil excavation
In the early stage of construction, the project department is facing a huge test, five large quantities of hard soil excavation difficulty beyond all expectations, in the known more than 4 million square meters of earthwork excavation and the same amount of filling process, hard soil accounted for a large proportion, after calculation, the whole line of hard earthwork volume of 2.35 million square meters, accounting for 59% of the roadbed excavation, hard soil layer leads to mechanical excavation difficulty coefficient is large, low efficiency, high cost, the overall construction difficulty is much higher than expected.
As the driest country in sub-Saharan Africa, Namibia is perennially dry and rainless, with an average annual rainfall of less than 300mm at the project site. In order to ensure the normal living needs of residents, the nano government has formulated strict laws to strictly prohibit the use of groundwater for construction, which leads to the construction of the city semi-purified water by the construction enterprises to rob, the price is extremely high and the supply is insufficient, the water pressure is unstable, for the project department with a large amount of earthwork construction is undoubtedly worse. At the same time, as a tourist country, Namibia's industrial base is extremely weak, and most of the materials are completely dependent on imports, including machine parts, raw materials and even daily necessities, and cement and stone are transported far away, high cost and time-consuming.
Secondly, the professional skill level of Namibia's territorial workers is relatively backward, and large machinery operators such as graders basically need to be imported from neighboring countries, and local protectionism is still prevalent in the region, and the minimum hourly wage standard in the construction industry has reached 18.86 yuan, about 7.13 yuan, and the wage standard for skilled jobs is higher. In order to win the support of workers, the local trade unions often organize and plan confrontations against foreign-funded enterprises, and the government rarely intervenes. In addition, the project is facing the pressure of corporate brand building and market expansion competition, due to the late entry into the Namibian market by Zhejiang Jiaogong, there are more than 30 Chinese-funded enterprises in Namibia, including many leaders in the field of road infrastructure such as China Railway and Jiangxi China Coal.
Opportunities and challenges coexist, and only by crossing the mountains can we see a smooth road
The project department organizes the excavation operation at night
In the face of the problem of large-scale earthwork construction, since the beginning of 2021, the project department has organized the earthwork excavation team from 05:30 in the morning to 9 in the evening:00 uninterrupted excavation operations, while moving equipment maintenance and other work to the evening, all processes are on duty by Chinese personnel in turn to ensure overtime efficiency and ensure night construction safety control, after nearly three years of efforts, the current earthwork excavation and filling work is basically nearing the end.
In line with the idea of open source and cost saving, the project department did not buy semi-purified water sources at a high price, after entering the site, the project business department took the initiative to communicate with multiple parties, seeking construction water, and finally reached a friendly negotiation with the surrounding farms after dozens of visits, and built a dam in the surrounding farms to store water for dry season construction, and at the same time recycled the semi-purified water of the community around the project for project earthwork, so far the project has no longer relied on the government city semi-purified water, the construction water problem has been effectively solved, and the contact with the surrounding people has been deepened, and a lot of unnecessary disputes have been reduced in the construction process。
The project successfully stored water in the rainy season by building its own dam on a private farm
Restricted by the procurement and transportation of raw materials, the project department plans the self-processing of stones, introduces its own gravel processing equipment, and reduces the cost of materials while ensuring the quality of raw material production As a benchmark, continuing the fine tradition of training and education for local employees, in the construction process, we continue to organize training to improve the professional skills of local employees, and give equal employment opportunities to female employees. As of now, there are more than 280 local employees in the project department, and on the platform built by the project, the local employees have basically gotten rid of the status quo of family poverty.
The work photo of the outstanding female surveyor of the project
In the process of communicating with local trade unions and other external forces, the project department adheres to the principle that iron striking needs its own hardness, and on the premise of respecting the wishes of employees and good communication, it has achieved standardized, meticulous and reasonable basis in the process of government tax payment, employee payment of social security, pension and other deposits. In order to further optimize the communication channels with local employees and promote the good operation of the project, the project department has set up a localized HR office, which is elected by employees to produce 3 trade union representatives to carry out project employee management and employee problem feedback, listen to the suggestions of local employees, and serve local employees; 。
Communicate with representatives of local trade unions
The original intention of building roads and repairing hearts has not changed, demonstrating the responsibility of state-owned enterprises
The project department organizes new crown and AIDS prevention publicity
Since the start of the Namibia Airport Road project, the new crown pneumonia epidemic has been raging, and the project department specially invited Namibian health institutions to conduct free physical examinations for local employees, and at the same time carried out in-depth health education and training, including AIDS, new crown pneumonia prevention and other aspects, a total of 500 local employees participated in the training, and the project department provided 250,000 free medical masks for local employees, becoming a model for Namibia's resumption of work and production during the epidemic.
The project organized watermill personnel to participate in the rescue of the wildfire
In 2022, Namibia experienced a continuous dry season for half a year, and on the afternoon of August 17, wildfires broke out in many mountains in Windhoek, the capital of Namibia. After receiving help from the police station, the project immediately organized experienced employees to use the project water truck to cooperate with the nano fire rescue, and after more than four hours of all-out rescue, all the open fires along the airport road were extinguished, which received a letter of thanks from the local government and unanimous praise from the surrounding residents.
The Namibian Roads Authority organizes local university students to visit the bridge construction of the project
At the end of July 2023, the project bridge structure node project has been completed, in which the appearance and quality control of the bridge construction have been well received by the owner and the supervisor Xi. The person in charge of the project said that in the follow-up work, the project department will continue to adhere to the concept of quality first, keep in touch with local schools, provide a more in-depth communication platform for local students, continuously improve the hard power of enterprise construction, and enhance the soft power of Chinese enterprises in society.
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