Low-quality, Sluggish Transport Projects Warned

To learn about the progress of key transportation projects across the country, from the beginning of March, Nguyen Duc Thang, Deputy General Director of DRVN, led a working delegation to inspect underway projects DRVN invested.

 

According to examination results, many projects keep the track of the progress from the very early days but some projects have not been deployed although they are given a plenty of favourable conditions.

 

Specifically, the National Road 8 upgrading project stretches 37 km in total, starting at the intersection with National Road 1A in Hong Linh town (Ha Tinh province) and ending in Huong Son district. The project is being carried out very discretely and the quality is substandard because there are many weak contractors undertaking the work.

 

Remarkably, the XL4 package handled by the consortium of Cienco 8 and CT89 Construction Joint Stock Company is sluggish. To date, it has completed just 28.4 per cent of the workload while it has received most favourable conditions for the project to get done. The DRVN leader concluded that “Contractors, especially road construction contractors, are lack of experience and poor at professionalism while advisers and supervisors are lack of responsibility, ignorant of quality errors."

The Hue City bypassing road construction project, consisting of four packages, is also behind time. Some contractors have been named for their lethargy because they affect the overall progress, e.g. Van Cuong Company and PVC Company.

 

As for the GL49A construction investment project, Deputy General Director Nguyen Duc Thang warned of its tardiness although contractors have brought machinery, equipment and personnel to the construction site after the Lunar New Year holidays 2013.

 

He noted that if the contractors failed to complete the additional absorbent grooves prior to March 30, 2013, PMU 6 Board will propose replacing the contractors.

 

Many transport projects in the capital city of Hanoi are also reported to be behindhand. Currently, the city has five key projects with huge impacts on social and economic development and traffic congestion tackling like a road linking Nhat Tan Bridge to Noi Bai Airport, Hanoi - Thai Nguyen Highway (new National Road 3), Hanoi - Hai Phong Highway, Noi Bai - Lao Cai Highway, and Nhat Tan Bridge. However, these projects are trapped in site clearance.

 

The Noi Bai - Lao Cai project stretches on a length of 264 km. This is the longest highway in Vietnam to date. This is a national key project and the Ministry of Transport vowed to the Government that the route would be put into operation by the end of 2013. However, the progress of some packages is moving very slowly and is threatening the scheduled completion of the entire project. The project has eight packages and six are undertaken by South Korean contractors. The capacity of some contractors is very limited, especially Keangnam. This contractor took on two packages, A4 and A5, with the completion deadline falling on the end of 2013. However, the progress is very slow. In recent months, the progress has been pushed up but the overall work is still far behind the schedule. To put highway projects into operation in time, the Ministry of Transport will punish any contractor violating the quality of projects.

 

The Hanoi - Thai Nguyen highway project was started in late 2009 and scheduled to be completed in June 2013. Nonetheless, according to project management board and contractors, site clearance and weak foundation processing in Hanoi districts caused the overall lateness of the project. Despite being slowly carried out, the National Road 3 is expected to be completed on December 31, 2013.