Concern raised over contract

JIWAKA Governor William Tongamp has raised concerns over the way the K3 billion contract for the Highlands Highway rehabilitation programme was awarded to three different Chinese companies without proper scope of work and project designs.
Tongamp said the road project would be behind schedule and would suffer cost variations given that the companies did not have designs in place to start the road project. He asked Prime Minister James Marape to explain why the contracts were signed as he understood the scope of works and design for several sections of the three phase road contract seemed to be missing and the contractor was yet to produce the design a year after the contract was awarded.
He said the 430km Nazab (Morobe) to Kagamuga (Western Highlands) project was important because it was a massive and historic project made possible through funding from the Asian Development Bank.
Tongamp said the project was awarded in phases for a eight-year project life time that began in July 2019 to July 2027.
The Governor said the three companies had been paid advances of 10 per cent last December while the ground breaking ceremony took place in January last year.
Tongamp, who recently visited the ADB office in Goroka, said ADB had contracted an Italian company to supervise the project.
But he found that the engineers were old men (in their 70s).
Tongamp said he was concerned whether the company had the capacity to carry out a project of this magnitude.
He asked if the state was prepared to cover extra costs.
Tongamp said the company contracted to work on the 61km of road in Jiwaka did not have a scope of work or a design.
Tongamp believed that other sections would be the same.
Marape said the project was initiated by the previous government so he needed to know the details before releasing a full report.