KATHMANDU, Dec 10: The government has cancelled the contract of projects worth Rs 2 billion in the past few months after the Prime Minister Sushila Karki took charge of the Prime Minister’s Office.
According to the government records, around 250 projects turned sick due to the contractors. A number of them have remained incomplete for the past one and a half decades.
Speaking at a program on Tuesday, Secretary of the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport Keshab Kumar Sharma said other contractors must not worry as the government has annulled the contracts of only a limited number of poorly performing contracts.
“The cancellation of the haphazardly awarded contracts should not deter genuine entrepreneurs,” said Sharma, stressing the need for increasing corporate culture in the sector.
In the last week of October, Minister for Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation, Physical Infrastructure and Transport and Urban Development Kulman Ghising had instructed subordinate bodies to terminate sick contracts to end the trend of taking contracts but not working and leaving projects abandoned. Subsequently, many government offices issued public notices asking the concerned contractors to appear at the offices within 15 days with a revised work schedule, a reliable plan for resource mobilization, a commitment to complete the work, and an explanation with factual evidence if there is any reasonable reason not to break the contract.
The government bodies even cautioned the contractors if they did not show readiness to start the work within the stipulated time, action would be taken to terminate the contract and the contractors would be blacklisted as per the provisions of the Public Procurement Act. In addition, the government had warned to recover the performance security, deposit amount, advance security and 10 percent interest on the advance amount, as well as to recover the remaining expenses incurred for the work as government dues.
Secretary Sharma pointed out the defective public procurement act for the non-performance of projects. “As different specific criteria are required for different items purchased, a single act cannot address the issues for all types of purchases,” he added.
During the review period, most of the terminated contracts were related to irrigation and construction of roads and bridges. Giving an instance of bridge construction over the Kamala River that had shown no progress for the past 15 years, the government officials said only such contracts have been terminated so far.
Bijaya Jaisi, director general of the Department of Roads, said that government authorities cannot be lenient towards construction entrepreneurs involved in sick projects. “Excessive negligence cannot be tolerated as everyone has to abide by the law,” he said.
Construction entrepreneurs cried foul over the recent government action. Rabi Singh, president of the Federation of Contractors’ Associations of Nepal, blamed the political leaders’ unfair move to assign major projects in their constituencies and the dilly dallying by government officials for the delay in completing projects.
“A number of officials had even delayed approving the project’s extension process for 29 months,” said Singh.
Meanwhile, Minister Ghising acknowledged that a number of projects had gone sick also due to the negligence by government officials. “So far, the government has not terminated contracts of those projects in which civil servants were responsible for the delay. The government will also not let go of the concerned civil servants whose misdeeds resulted in the projects becoming sick,” Ghising said.
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