Kamuzu Barrage contractor misses deadline
The construction works to upgrade the Kamuzu Barrage Bridge at Liwonde in Machinga is set to miss the deadline by over two months due to some delays by the contractor, Weekend Nation has learnt.
According to the contract agreement between government and the contractor, Civil Works, was supposed to complete the three-year project by October 2017.
However, during a media briefing after a tour of the construction site on Thursday, both Malawi Government and Norplan, the supervising consultant, expressed worry over some delays registered at the site by the contractor, saying there will be need for additional months for the barrage to be fully upgraded.
Speaking in an interview, government’s site representative Toney Nyasulu, who is also senior water resources engineer, said the work has so far delayed by about five months.
“It is true the contractor will not meet the deadline of October 2017. There were some delays, which in total account for five months, while the contractor says they will stick to the time frame, they might extend the duration of the project by two months to finish in December 2017,” said Nyasulu.
Government borrowed $50 million (K36.5 billion) from the World Bank to construct the new barrage.
Asked on how much this delay will cost government, Nyasulu could not account the cost, but was quick to say that looking at the pace of the work now, he was hopeful the contractor would live up to the December 2017 deadline.
“We are still in phase one of the project. Some of the work for phase two has already begun and so it is too early to get the whole picture.
Norplan project manager Johan Skorve said looking at the pace of the work and all logistics, the work will finish somewhere in 2018.
Said Skorve: “Delays cannot be ruled out in construction and there is no any serious setback that can push the project to a complete halt. The work is going on well, except for the delays by the contractor.
“They are over four months late and to this we are now adding two more months because they also delayed in procuring gates from India. In total, we are talking of six months delay. So, a realistic completion date for the work would be sometime mid 2018 and that is what we are preparing for now.”
He explained that six barrage gates have since arrived in the country and eight others are still in India under fabrication where they have their staff supervising the work so that they have a good a picture of how they are.
Skorve said the remaining gates will be ready for shipping in October and this will not affect the work because they are all for phase two of the project which begins in January 2017. n
