COMMENT - And why isn't there money? Because the mines are not taxed. And who degrades roads the most? The mines.
Inadequate funds cited as reason for uncompleted roads
Monday, June 21, 2010, 21:57
The Road Development Agency (RDA) says most of the works on the roads have not been completed because of inadequate resource allocation to the agency. RDA Chief Executive Officer (CEO) Erasmus Chilundika said this when he appeared before the Parliamentary Accounts Committee (PAC) today.
Mr. Chilundika told the committee that the agency faces problems with funding saying the allocation towards the construction of roads and bridges in the country required more money which he said has hindered the agency from completing the works on most roads.
He said even the National Roads Fund Agency (NRFA) most of the times failed to fund the construction of roads if the money required was huge. He said some roads and bridges that were not in the RDA work plan were worked on due to the public outcry and called for supplementary funding. He however said that the agency would ensure that roads that have remained uncompleted for sometime were worked on before the end of next year.
He disclosed that the Choma-Namwala road will be completed by the end of this year while the Kasama- Luwingu road would be worked on as well. During the same sitting, Works and Supply Permanent Secretary Watson Ng’ambi said his ministry is committed to ensuring that the agency worked on all the roads in the country where contractors abandoned work before finishing.
He said contractors who have failed to do quality work on the roads would be reported to the NCC to ensure that they are disciplined and that money paid to them would be recovered.
Earlier, Nkana Member of Parliament Mwenya Musenge who is the member of PAC said RDA only carried out road rehabilitation and construction where there was a by election leaving major roads such as the Kasama-Luwingu road which had remained uncompleted for over 10 years.
Mr. Musenge said the agency was not prudent in utilising public resources allocated to them saying it was untrue that the agency had no funds to work on the roads.
But PAC Chairperson Emmanuel Hachipuka urged Mr. Musenge and the committee to leave the by elections out of the deliberations. The chairperson also urged RDA to cooperate with the officers from the Auditor General whenever they visited them to verify reports and said they should ensure that all irregularities were corrected to avoid appearing several times before the PAC.
Meanwhile, the Permanent Secretary said his offices will always be open to receive the officers from the Auditor General adding that they would ensure that measures were taken to correct the errors.
ZANIS
Labels: CONSTRUCTION, ERASMUS CHILUNDIKA, NRFA, RDA, ROADS
Read more...
‘Withdrawal of funding has affected RDA’
By Ernest Chanda and Mwala Kalaluka
Fri 07 May 2010, 03:40 CAT
ROAD Development Agency (RDA) director Erasmus Chilundika yesterday told the parliamentary committee on estimates that the withdrawal of donor funding to the road sector has affected the rate at which the agency can perform.
Responding to a question from Kabwata Patriotic Front (PF) parliamentarian Given Lubinda who wanted to know why the Auditor General’s report on the road sector presented to President Rupiah Banda has not yet been presented to Parliament and if it were true that the contents of the report had led to donors withdrawing funding from the sector, Chilundika admitted that there were errors highlighted in the report.
The committee is chaired by Bweengwa UPND parliamentarian Highvie Hamududu.
“With regard to the standoff with the cooperating partners, you will recall that a number of cooperating partners had issued statements in the press where they were saying that they had suspended funding to the road sector until the issues that had been raised by Auditor General are resolved.
Now where we are the audit is complete, the draft final has been submitted to the ministry, we have reacted to it. And we are expecting that this document will be presented to the parliamentary public accounts committee as the law requires. And it’s only really after that that we will be in greater position to be able to speak into the details of that audit,” Chilundika submitted.
“But what we are doing now, because we are a sector that requires a lot of resources and the absence of donor funding is affecting the rate at which we are able to undertake works. You will recall Honourable members of parliament that we did mention in our presentation of the budget the other year and last year that we are working with the EU in Central Province and North Western Province by way of sector budget support.
Now those monies have dried up and yet there’s a lot of need in those two provinces where they committed to work with us. We’ve looked at the audit heads and we have developed what we are calling corrective actions to be undertaken. We do value the audit findings; like any institution there are systemic failures and those issues we are addressing them by way of those corrective actions. And we hope that we should be able to discuss this matter and bring it to a conclusion.”
And former works and supply permanent secretary Lieutenant Colonel Bizwayo Nkunika said his recent removal from office had nothing to do with recommendations made in the donor-induced financial audit report on the road sector.
Lt Col Nkunika in an interview described his removal from the ministry as a normal reshuffle.
“It’s just time up. I have been there Ministry of Works and Supply for eight years and we normally are shuffled around. I do not see anything strange in this,” said Lt Col Nkunika yesterday when asked if his removal was connected to the road sector audit. “As far I am concerned I do not see anything strange in this.”
When told that there were further assertions that he asked to be removed so that he focuses on his political interests in Lundazi, Lt Col Nkunika responded in the negative.
But sources said Lt Col Nkunika left in order to get into active politics.
“He wants to go into politics because even the issue of new permanent secretary Watson Ng’ambi going in as PS we knew it by January,” the source said. “He Lt Col Nkunika was even in Mufumbwe with the President. He is still trying to warm up his seat in Lundazi.”
However, the source said it would be speculative to connect Lt Col Nkunika’s exit from the Ministry to the donor-induced audit in the road sector.
“People are just speculating because the report has not been released. It is still with State House and it has not yet been released,” the source said.
The Auditor General’s office last year constituted a team of auditors to probe concerns by the donor community on the K1.5 trillion over-procurement of projects by the Road Development Agency (RDA) in 2008.
Donors funding the road sector queried the Road Development Agency (RDA) to substantiate why it over-procured projects by more than K1 trillion in the 2008 annual work plan and a partial halt of donor funding to the road sector was effected awaiting the RDA’s explanation.
Lt Col Nkunika, who was still in office then, said the above over-procurement query was in a way a misunderstanding of the process of procurement.
Labels: ERASMUS CHILUNDIKA, GIVEN LUBINDA, HIGHVIE HAMUDUDU, INFRASTRUCTURE, RDA
Read more...
Donors query RDA’s projects expedenditure
Written by Mwala Kalaluka
Monday, June 08, 2009 6:46:29 PM
DONORS have queried the Road Development Agency (RDA) to substantiate why it over-procured road projects by more than K1 trillion in the 2008 annual work plan.
And Ministry of Works and Supply permanent secretary Lieutenant Colonel Bizwayo Nkunika said the
over-procurement query is in a way a misunderstanding of the process of procurement.
Meanwhile, RDA acting chief executive officer Erasmus Chilundika said the above situation is not an over-procurement but an advanced procurement undertaken from 2008.
Well-placed sources told The Post that following the queried 2008 annual work plan over-procurement by the RDA, donors such as the World Bank have gone ahead to withhold funding on the Lusaka-Chirundu road rehabilitation undertaking.
“The NRFA have asked them to substantiate why they have over-procured,” the sources said. “The budget for 2008 was about K1.3 trillion but they have overshot by more than K1 trillion.”
The sources, who expressed concern at the current government’s muteness on the irregularity, said some donors in the road sector also asked the RDA to justify why it had overcommitted the government during the 2008 procurement process.
They said the query was raised during a meeting between donors and road sector stakeholders held at Lusaka’s Pamodzi Hotel sometime last month, where even some donors walked out.
“The World Bank has even withheld Lusaka-Chirundu until they [RDA] justify why they over-procured in 2008,” the sources said. “Right now, RDA is almost coming to a standstill because there is now almost no money now, because all the money is going to service the projects that were over-procured last year.”
The sources said RDA had over the last month been working around the issue of trying to justify the over-procurement.
And Lt Col Nkunika said an analysis of the over-procurement concern had been done and handed over to the donors to explain the over-procurement.
However, Lt Col Nkunika said the RDA should be commended for procuring works in advance.
“You recall that last year we were condemned that we had no capacity to procure and as a result K180 billion went back to the treasury, unused at the end of the year,” Lt. Col Nkunika said. “So we became proactive and procured works in advance.”
He explained that a project would in this case become active once a contract had been signed and that no money would be paid until after a contract had been signed.
“When you are procuring, say, Kasempa to Chavuma, you procure for the whole road and so the cost reflects the entire works of the road,” he said. “Work will only depend on the particular money released.”
Lt Col Nkunika said the roads that were procured were all in the annual work plan and that if there was any project that was done outside the work plan, then it was a must-do.
He gave an example of the Zimba-Livingstone road and some breakaways along the Great East Road, which he described as emergency works.
“The over-procurement was in a way, a misunderstanding of the procurement process,” Lt Col Nkunika said. “There are roads that came on board after the budgetary process.”
He said there were roads that were supposed to be constructed in the planned multi-facility economic zones, tourist areas like Kasaba Bay and in some farming blocks.
“If these roads are done, we will need an extra K170 billion, but if we are going to do the normal routine roads then we are within the budget by about K3 billion,” explained Lt Col Nkunika. “There is no over-procurement because the contracts have not been signed. It is just a question of understanding how projects work.” Meanwhile, Chilundika said the NRFA had not queried the RDA on the over-procurement issue.
“The donors believe that there was over-procurement of works that will be outside the budget by K1.5 trillion,” he said. “Works are undertaken according to the cash flow.”
Chilundika said the projects perceived to have been over-procured were actually budgeted for in 2008 and would be commissioned this year, up to 2010 some cases.
Labels: BIZWAYO NKUNIKA, DONORS, ERASMUS CHILUNDIKA, RDA
Read more...
