Lesson 1: Slow investment progress
After a year of construction, the Central Region Connectivity Project in Quang Nam province has not made much progress. The compensation and site clearance issues have not been resolved.
Blockage There has not been much new since the groundbreaking of the Central Region Linkage Project in Quang Nam Province (July 19, 2023). The deadline set for April 30, 2024 or at the latest June 30, 2024 to hand over the entire construction site through inspections and conclusions of the Provincial Party Secretary and Head of the Steering Committee on promoting compensation and site clearance for key projects in 2021 - 2025 could not come true.
During the inspection at the end of June 2024, Provincial Party Secretary Luong Nguyen Minh Triet said the project's investment progress was slow. The investor needs to coordinate with localities and construct as soon as land is available to keep up with the schedule.
The 31.5km long road passing through many localities (Thang Binh, Phu Ninh, Tien Phuoc, Bac Tra My) is broken and interrupted. Contractors have cast enough culvert components, but are only constructing the foundation and horizontal drainage culverts on sections with sufficient ground (Phu Ninh, Tien Phuoc, Bac Tra My).
Truong Giang Bridge (Binh Nam, Thang Binh) completed casting 28/48 super T girders, constructed 18/64 bored piles. Shrimp pond land at the construction site of pier M1 and piers T1, T2 has not been compensated, construction cannot be carried out yet.
According to the Project Management Board for Investment and Construction of Traffic Works (investor), compensation, site clearance, and resettlement face many difficulties and are prolonged because it takes a long time to meet to review the origin of the land.
The current land use status has a large change in area compared to the land use right certificate. The origin of the land is not used for the right purpose according to the land use right certificate.
The approval of specific land prices for submission to the appraisal and approval of compensation plans is slow. Some localities have not yet approved specific land prices. Resettlement areas implemented by localities have not been completed, so there is no basis for appraisal and approval of compensation plans for cases requiring resettlement.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tam - Director of the Traffic Construction Investment Project Management Board said that nearly 40% of the site has been handed over (12.5/31.5km), but it is not continuous, making it difficult to implement construction.
Many infrastructures on the route such as electricity, fiber optic cables... have not been relocated. The volume of implementation has only reached 80/516 billion VND. The investor is coordinating with the People's Committees of the districts where the project passes through to continue to compensate and clear the remaining part to hand over the construction site.
The investor reported that the 2km section through Thang Binh is currently blocked because of 12 shrimp ponds. People refuse to hand over the land. The People's Committee of Binh Nam commune has not yet reviewed and reported 6 plots of land at 5%. There is no land for reburial or relocation of graves (the residential area has 192 graves and 5 graves on the route). The 1.9km section through Phu Ninh has not yet approved the documents for measurement, adjustment and supplementation. The 21.9km section through Tien Phuoc has many plots of land that do not meet the conditions for compensation.
People have not yet completed the procedures for inheritance, donation, transfer, or extension of agricultural land use. About 30 households have had their plans approved, but they “criticized” the low price and did not receive compensation.
The project's resettlement areas have not yet been fully invested in, and there is not enough basis to develop a plan for compensation, site clearance, and resettlement for households affected by housing.
The 5.7km section through Bac Tra My has 11 households that have not received money related to low prices, houses next to the strip have been recovered, and the strip has been requested to be adjusted; 15 households and 1 Protestant organization have not approved the plan...
Delay
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tam admitted before the supervision session of the Provincial People's Council Standing Committee on June 6, 2024 that the project implementation was delayed. The bidding and contract awarding process had many procedures that had to be completed to comply with the sponsor's regulations, so the time was prolonged.
The delay in project implementation is not the “fault” of the investor but is due to difficulties from the public investment capital plan to the overlap of laws on construction investment, land... The complicated COVID-19 pandemic has broken the coordination chain with foreign personnel, affecting the project progress.
According to the Department of Planning and Investment, this project was approved by the Prime Minister on June 27, 2016. The Provincial People's Committee approved the investment from April 17, 2017. The Provincial People's Committee reported to the Ministry of Planning and Investment and the Ministry of Finance to register the list and capital level in the medium-term public investment plan 2016 - 2020.
However, because the agreement with the sponsor has not been negotiated or signed, the project has not been allocated capital in the 2016-2020 medium-term public investment plan and has no basis for implementation.
Legal documents on ODA capital use, investment, construction, and land have been adjusted many times. This incident led to the project having to be adjusted and changed 3 times (2018, 2020 & 2021), prolonging the implementation time.
According to the investor, the difficulty of this project (projects using ODA capital often encounter) is that the bidding packages must be organized for international bidding (design of construction drawings and estimates, construction), the regulations on the time to prepare bidding documents and the time for other procedures are also longer than domestic bidding.
The regulation requires consulting with the sponsor at each implementation step (must submit and have the sponsor review and agree on the long list, short list of consultants, bidding documents, technical proposal evaluation results, financial evaluation results, contract negotiations, contracts...).
The time to review the sponsor's feedback is long, and many edits and improvements must be made according to the sponsor's opinions... leading to a long time to organize the selection of contractors, which is also one of the main reasons for the delay.
Mr. Nguyen Thanh Tam said that the investor has repeatedly sent letters requesting the sponsor to speed up the review process. By the second quarter of 2023, the investor will have completed the selection of contractors and signed contracts for the construction of traffic items and begun compensation and site clearance.
According to the plan, the project will complete construction according to the signed contract before December 5, 2025. However, with a series of current bottlenecks and chaos, it is not easy for the project to be completed on schedule.
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Final Lesson: Necessary to Fit Reality
The Central Region Connectivity Project in Quang Nam Province was approved in 2017. The total investment is 34.5 million USD, of which ODA capital is 25.47 million USD, lent by the Korean Government through the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF), covering the following costs: construction, construction drawing design consultancy, supervision consultancy, contingency costs and EDCF service fees; counterpart capital is 9.04 million USD, equivalent to 201.2 billion VND (90.3 billion VND from the central budget and 110.9 billion VND from the provincial budget), covering the following costs: project management, remaining construction investment consultancy, other costs, compensation, site clearance, taxes and fees.
Source: https://baoquangnam.vn/du-an-lien-ket-vung-mien-trung-tinh-quang-nam-vi-sao-phai-dieu-chinh-chu-truong-dau-tu-bai-1-tien-do-dau-tu-i-ach-3137605.html
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