IN the continued crackdown meant to bring sanity to the road sector, the Government has terminated the K117 billion-contract awarded to Jianjsu Wjin Corporation for the construction of roads in Kabwe and Kapiri Mposhi districts.
This comes barely five days after the Government cancelled the K80-billion contract awarded to politician, Ben Mwila’s company, Wade Adams Piling, for the construction of part of the Mumbwa-Landless Corner Road in Central Province.
Road Development Agency (RDA) head of public relations, Loyce Saili, said in an interview in Lusaka yesterday that Jianjsu Wjin Corporation Limited was awarded the contract to construct urban roads in Kapiri Mposhi and Kabwe but failed to meet the terms of the contract.
Ms Saili said RDA had now instituted measures to recover the money from the Chinese company so that the tender could be given to another firm. This brings the total amount of money that RDA is trying to recover from the two companies to more than K130 billion.
Ms Saili said Jianjsu Wjin Corporation Limited was paid K17.5 billion as advance payment for the road projects that were commissioned in May and were expected to be completed this month. Nothing tangible has taken place on the ground.She said RDA had written to the bank that guaranteed the funds asking for a refund to ensure that the project did not suffer.
Ms Saili said Jianjsu Wjin was contracted to work on a 34-kilometre road network in the two towns but deserted the project and that the work was below satisfactory levels.
She also said the contract provided that the Chinese firm should have made available a performance bond within 28 days after the contract was done but failed to do so.
“This amounts to a fundamental breach of the contract. So as RDA, we had no choice but to terminate the contract. We are in the process of trying to procure another contractor to improve roads in Kabwe and Kapiri Mposhi,” Ms Saili said.
She said RDA had re-aligned its procedures following high levels of irresponsibility exhibited by some contractors. She said RDA was compiling performance records of all contractors and those that would show a poor record would be blacklisted.
Ms Saili said RDA did not want to deal with “makeshift” contractors because it wanted roads to add value to the economy.
“We will be firm in our monitoring and supervision of all the contracts. This will involve sending reminders at every stage where we think work is not being done accordingly,” Ms Saili said.
The company was running as a joint venture with a Zambian consultant.The letter of termination was written on September 28, 2011 asking the firm to surrender the project back to RDA for deserting and failing to meet the terms in the contract.
Apart from Jianjsu Wjin Corporation, RDA terminated a road construction project valued at about K80 billion with a performance bond of K8 billion for a company owned Mr Mwila.
Mr Mwila is president of National Democratic Focus (NDF) and contested the Nchelenge parliamentary seat on the MMD ticket during the September 20 general elections.
[Times of Zambia]
HE IS PRESIDENT FOR NDF BUT HE STOOD ON MMD TICKET. what a move and HE lost. political contracts are abolished politically.
Cage RDA pipo , not the Contarctors, Why wait for PF Government to force RDA re-evaluate these tenders? One wonders if MMD was in power would these changes happen? PF means well and RDA must be transparent in contract awards as well as monitoring the progress of works, they are not supposed to be reminded that contractor A, B, C is not performing, then why put them their, U have to wait for new Minisetr of works in PF to talk? Are we going to do the same when ADD, ZED , UPND or ZED come to power in 2016, Come on be independent from political influence and act professionaly , if u have any interfearance come out in the open the zambian people will help empower you.
RDA how do you start, initiate, manage, monitor, and close up your projects? My advise is that if you use PRINCE2 all your problems will be sorted out. PRINCE2 allows you to assess the continuate of the project at every stage. This will be in the best interest of both the client and the contractor. I believe your engineers have processes which the follow including PRINCE2, but is not followed.
Enough with the Silly Question marks?? Seriously are you children?
So from K2.1 billion that tool buried waiting for it to germinate we would have built roads right?
The RDA
officers are the ones who are very corrupt and shud be investigated.The SHEET owns verg big marnshions which do not translate or eqiuvalent to their salaries.They are ones who have allowed the pipo of kabwe to sufer the sins they did not commit.They are very dirt in their awarding of contracts.TOO MUCH KICK-BACKS.LET THEIR BE A COMMISSION OF INQUIRY TOO
…and the circus continues. Zambia with all those billion Kwachas being revealed evryday hidden under ground sure, we are indeed a laughing stock. These thieves are still roaming the streets and even arguing they are innocent. If I was President (just as well I am not), I could have instilled fear in the Zambian pipo by shooting those thieves in the open for everybody to see; YES, kill them because by denying poor Zambians the right to have medicines in Hospitals, they have killed too…
Its ironical that in 2001, sata was flying arround in choppers with K2billion taxpayers money. That money is today valued at K5billion and was for buying a few materesses for the mmd convernsion.
Wake up guys. Its pay back time. All the millions that were contributed to the PF have to be recovered through contracts to be awarded. But wait a minute, this is wrong in law. You the excited tax payer will foot the legal fees and damages. These PF chaps are crazy. There is a provision for arbitration in the contract and they have not yet followed that path and straight away go to camcellation
This clearly is not the contractors fault. RDA was not supposed to give the contractor the 17 billion advance payment because he did not submit the performance bond. There was no guarantee that he could fulfil the terms of the contract without this. Since Performance Bond is an insurance, there is no way the bank could have issued this to a high risk contractor. The guys involved in the procurement process should be suspended. THIS CLEARLY A JOKE.
this road was last reported as cancelled 2 weeks ago. lusaka times; were you waiting at an opportune time to write about this?
RDA Contract sums are hugely EMBELLISHED to accommodate CORRUPTION pay-outs!! And it therefore puzzles me how these contractors fail to complete the works. RDA should also take the blame for the shoddy quality of work from these contractors. After receiving their payouts from the contractors, RDA officials are so weakened that they cannot correct or punish the contractor for producing poor quality work, or falling behind the construction schedule. When an RDA official arrives on site to inspect the road he would most probably have been driving his personal vehicle that the same contractor bought for him/her!!
Ba Fikahala lekeni Sata ateke
Saili iwe,Red Lion ku Chingola, taulandapo, u are ze next to be investigated