The World Bank has given an ultimatum of two months to contractors undertaking phase one of Urban Support to Municipal Infrastructure Development Additional Funding, USMID-AF to complete the construction work.
Huyen Phan, Senior Urban Specialist at World Bank in Uganda disclosed during the inspection of Apac Municipal roads yesterday that the contractor will not be paid if the construction of these roads is not completed by the end of this year.
“The batch one investments will be completed by Dec 31, if anything goes beyond this period we will not pay. I urged the contractor to do the work so that we can beat this deadline,” she said.
In Apac Municipality only 78 percent of the work has so far been done despite the contract period expiring 16 months ago.
Patrick Ongom Eyul, Mayor Apac Municipality said that they are very uncomfortable because they are not sure whether the project will be completed.
“This project we have at hand we are really very uncomfortable because we are not sure whether it will be delivered on time. The problem we have with the contractor is that they don’t interface with us,” he said.
Chegere Road 0.65 km and Chawente Road 0.80 km are being constructed by Al-Anuimi Group and Abubaker Technical Services Joint Venture at the cost of Shs 16 billion. It was launched in July 2021 to be completed within a period of 15 months.
However, Timothy Wassaijja, the contract manager Al-Anuimi Group and Abubaker Technical Services Joint Venture blamed the delays on the effects of Covid 19 pledging to beat the set deadline.
“We are going to complete this project within the time for the project though we have also faced so many challenges. One of the biggest challenges is Covid because this project came at a time when the world was shocked by this pandemic and also the war in Ukraine resulted in an increase in the prices of the commodities,” he said.
Al-Anuimi Group and Abubaker Technical Services Joint Venture is implementing the batch one of USMID-AF in Moroto Municipality, Lira City and Apac Municipality
