The Kala Camp neighborhood project consists of the construction of about 1,000 housing units at various sizes and finishing levels and about 30 square meters of public buildings, including schools, a hospital, a church for 700 worshippers; a sports center with a football field, basketball, tennis, volleyball and squash courts, swimming pools and athletic race tracks; office and logistics buildings and plants for purification of water and treatment of wastewater.

Other components of the project are roads at lengths of 19 km, car parks over an area of about 50 thousand sq.m., sidewalks and paths, street lights, electric grid, a generator system with full backup, independent water supply system, water collection and sewage system,, including wastewater treatment, and a storm water collection and discharge system, in an area where the annual average precipitation is 2,000 to 2,500 mm, usually within a 5-month period.

The Kala Camp project was established for the Zambian government with the purpose of strengthening the Kawambwa district, near the northern border of the country, about 1,000 km from the capital city of Lusaka.

Ashtrom International supplied the kitchens and the closets in the residential units and all the furnishings and equipment required for the operation of the other buildings and facilities, such as the hospital, schools, offices and the sports facilities.

The construction process and challenges

The location of the project posed several challenges to Ashtrom International, among which, in the supply of materials, equipment and contracting with contracts for works where there were no local supply and reserve chains. In the project, a plant was built for the production of concrete blocks, concrete and prefabricated elements.

A quarry was established near the project to supply all the materials required for production in the plants and for the road systems and the car parks. The maintenance of the machinery and the plants was made independently, while dealing with the difficulty in procuring parts and hiring qualified personnel.

The procurement system, including importation and transport of the goods and elements for construction, was operated by an administrative office in Lusaka.

Throughout the period of building the neighborhood, the project management saw to repairing all the deficiencies that were discovered from the beginning to the end of construction and through the occupancy of the project.