Radar | Jan 03,2021
January 12 , 2019
By BERHANE HAILEMARIAM ( FORTUNE STAFF WRITER )
The Auditor General confronted the Ministry of Water, Irrigation & Electricity over the inflated costs of the Zarema Mayday and Megech irrigation dams, which have reached a total of 13.6 billion Br together.
Gemechu Dubisso, the auditor general, reported the inflated aggregate cost of the two irrigation dams to the State Expenditure Administration & Control Affairs Standing Committee, which called a briefing session in parliament on January 9, 2019.
Questions were raised at the session by the Auditor General, members of the Standing Committee and teams from the Federal Ethics & Anti-corruption Commission, the Ministry of Finance, the Public Procurement & Disposal Administration and the Planning & Development Commission.
Abraham Adugna (PhD), state minister of Water, Irrigation & Electricity, and Kamil Shemsu and Engdasew Zerihun, coordinators of the Zarema and Megech, respectively, defended the findings of the report.
The audit report stated that the construction of the Zarema Mayday Irrigation Dam in Tigray Regional State, which is a part of the Welkayt Sugar Mill project, was launched seven years ago by the Ethiopian Sugar Corporation without sufficient design, environmental assessments or pre-feasibility studies.
It also asserted that the contractor, Sur Construction Company, and the consultant, Studio Galli Engineering, were assigned to the project without passing the proper procurement process and that a neutral third party did not approve the feasibility study prepared after construction of the project was started.
The Auditor General requested that the inflated cost of the dam, at 14.5 billion Br, was unjustified when the initial estimate was 4.2 billion Br. The construction of the dam was delayed for a year after its commencement due to design problems. An Italian firm then redesigned it, and the construction resumed with a local contractor, Sur Construction, in January 2014.
The audit finding also stated that the Megech Dam Project, located in the Amhara Regional State and expected to hold 1.8 billion cubic meters of water, had no feasibility study nor any study that was evaluated by a third party, which caused delays.
The contractor and consultants of the project are Ethiopian Construction Works Corporation's Water Infrastructure Construction Division and Ethiopian Construction Design & Construction's Water & Energy Design Supervision Works Division, respectively.
The Auditor General asked for justification for the bloated project cost, which skyrocketed from 2.5 billion Br to 5.6 billion Br, adding that performance reports delivered by the contractor and consultant varied and payments were effected without the approval of the consultant based on the performance of the tasks. It also questioned the Ministry’s reluctance on assigning the experts to follow up and supervise the project performance.
The Auditor General also asked the ministry why the project was not integrated with the construction of water pipes as the project was designed to provide potable water to residents in Gonder and the preparation of land for sugarcane plantations.
The state minister and the project coordinators responded to the questions, stating that the Sugar Corporation began the Zarema Mayday project and that they were involved only since 2016 when the project reached 40pc completion. The Corporation did not properly hand over all necessary documents, they claimed.
And the assignment of Sur Construction was done at the request of the Tigray Water Construction Enterprise with the aim of raising the capacity of local construction companies, according to the state minister.
The Zarima dam still needs more financing, with 3.7 billion Br having been allocated just this fiscal year. After the project was transferred to the Ministry, a project management team of 16 experts was formed to oversee procurement and contract administration.
“The reluctance to take immediate actions for such urgent projects was due to gaps at the Ministry,” Abraham said. “The Ministry has devised an exit strategy for both projects that will expedite the completion of the projects.”
The Auditor General, unsatisfied with the remarks of the state minister, criticised the Ministry for not coming up with a time frame for taking corrective actions and stated that they would be waiting for more elaborate justifications for the project lag. Mohammed Yesuf, the chairperson of the standing committee, backed the assertions of the Auditor General and adjourned the meeting.
PUBLISHED ON
Jan 12,2019 [ VOL
19 , NO
976]
Radar | Feb 02,2019
Fortune News | Jun 27,2020
Radar | Oct 24,2020
Fortune News | Feb 15,2020
Fortune News | Jul 18,2020
November 27 , 2021
Against my will, I have witnessed the most terrible defeat of reason and the most sa...
November 13 , 2021
Plans and reality do not always gel. They rarely do in a fast-moving world. Every act...
October 16 , 2021 . By HAWI DADHI
Residing in a country with no capital market, an organised marketplace for trading se...
August 28 , 2021 . By HAWI DADHI
The streets of Addis Abeba are as varied as they are many, although too many of them have yet to be named. From the narrow alleyways of the...
May 14 , 2022
Diana Yohannes is one of those actively engaging in social media platforms with her T...
May 7 , 2022
The Ethiopian Economic Association (EEA) recently proposed the formation of a macroec...
April 30 , 2022
There is no ambiguity in the UNDP's assessment of Ethiopia’s economic performance a...
April 22 , 2022
Most African countries top the list when ranked on the prevalence of conflict, food i...
Loading your updates...
Put your comments here