Ministry of Water on the spot over non completion of multibillion shillings' projects

The Ministry of Water, Sanitation and Irrigation has been taken to task by parliament over the slow implementation and stalling of various multibillion shillings’ projects across the country.

The Principal Secretary for the State Department of Water Julius Korir who appeared before the National Assembly Public Accounts Committee in Parliaments buildings yesterday had difficult time explaining why several Water projects remained incomplete despite funds being allocated.

Korir told the committee that the Ministry was currently carrying out performance evaluation and will be disqualifying some of the contractors who have failed to honour their agreements to complete water projects within the stipulated time period to avoid wastage of public resources.

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According to the Auditor General’s report available information and contract agreements for the current works implemented by both the Tana Water Works Development Agency and the Northern Water Works Development Agency show that various contract agreements for the implementation were signed in 2018 and early 2019 with completion dates set for June and July, 2020.

However, by June 30, 2020 the projects were not completed leading to revision of the completion dates to November and December, 2021 the Projects were not completed by 30 June, 2022, and the completion dates were further extended to between December, 2022 and March, 2023 as previously reported.

“During the year under review, 10 projects with a contract sum of Sh 6.3 billion were visited for verification in the month of September, 2022, projects with a total contract sum of Sh 2.3 billion had satisfactory progress, however seven projects with a contract sum of Sh 4 billion had not been satisfactorily executed and had overall completion levels ranging between 51 % and 76%,” states the report.

The Auditor General report states that although the management attributed delay in implementation of the projects to failure to obtain tax exemption and inadequate counterpart funding, no evidence was provided on measures being taken to forestall the recurrence of a similar situation.

On the Changamwe re-pooling Sewer Network the Contract for the works was awarded to a Company at a contract sum of Sh 204 million while the contract commencement date was December 14, 2018 and the expected completion date was June 14, 2020, which was later extended to January 14, 2021 while as at June 30, 2022, the contractor had been paid Sh 72.8 million.

However, review of the documents presented for audit revealed that the project had stalled due to a court order issued for an ongoing lawsuit by the contractor against the Athi Water Works Development Ageny for breach of contractual agreement that restrained the AWWDA from evicting the Contractor from the possession of the construction site and appointing another contractor to proceed with the construction work, pending the hearing and determination of the suit.

The Auditor General report revealed that for the Mwala Cluster Water supply project the works was awarded to a contractor at Sh 583.3 million with the commencement date of April 1, 2019 and expected completion date of June 2020, which was later extended to 5 August, 2021, however the contract was terminated on May 24, 2022 because the contractor executed the works at a very low pace with the works completed as at the time of termination was 3%.

“Further, the contractor had been paid an amount of Sh 133.7 million which included Sh 116.6 million for advance payment and Sh 17 million for interim payment while the total value of works executed and certified amounted to Sh 17.5 million However, the AWWDA had performance security bond of Sh 58.3 million which could not guarantee recovery of the paid amounts,” stated the Auditor General report.

The Auditor General report highlighted the slow implementation of Machakos Water supply project with the statement of receipts and payments and as disclosed in the financial statements reflects an amount of Sh 510.3 million in respect to acquisition of non-financial assets which includes Sh 471.8 million for construction of civil works which further includes Sh 228 million paid to a construction company.

The Lake Victoria North Water Works Development Agency water project was allocated a budget of Sh 3.2 billion commencing on December 14, 2012, and was to last for seven years up to 31 December, 2019, but was extended to 2020, however, as at the time of audit, in September, 2022, the Project had not formally closed with no explanation provided for the failure to close the Project at the expiry of its life time.