Awesa sets up audit team to investigate road contracts

THE substandard and incomplete work by contractors has forced the Works Department to establish an audit team comprising its engineers and the Task Force Sweep team to investigate the contracts.
Works and Implementation Minister Francis Awesa told parliament last Thursday that his ministry and department were aware of many complaints about poor and incomplete road works costing millions of kina.
He said the department would address this issue with the audit team.
Awesa was responding to MPs Joe Sungi (Nuku) and Tobias Kulang (Kundiawa-Gembogl) about incomplete road constructions in their districts.
Sungi claimed that work had not started on the K8.6 million Nuku-Arakosame road construction but about K1 million had been used by the contractor.
Kulang said that the K25.7 million rehabilitation work on the Kundiawa-Gembogl road had taken a year to complete and only 50% of the work was done with old machinery.
He added that the contractor had also asked for a variation of 55% on the total cost.
However, Awesa said a variation of more than 10% of the total cost should go through the tender’s board.
He added that he was aware of the K18 million variation but said the government would not pay.
“We will go and check the road and the machines and carry out an audit of the work done and will not entertain any variation as the money paid was based on costing submitted,” he said.
Awesa reiterated that the government was concerned about the standard and quality of work by private contractors and the audit team would investigate and appropriate action would be taken.