The Department of Roads has submitted details of over 150 roads and bridges projects marred by irregularities and delays to the Commission for Investigation of Abuse of Authority.

The anti-graft body has been showing concerns over the contracts related to the construction projects, which are worth billions of rupees and are in various stages of implementation.

The department also conducted a study into the sick projects and came up with suggestions for the government agencies to prevent irregularities in construction projects. “In late July, we submitted details of the contracts related to roads and bridges projects which have turned sick,” said Shiva Prasad Nepal, spokesperson at the Department of Roads. “Their number is between 150-160.”

On July 9, the anti-graft body had asked the department to submit a report on the latest status of construction contracts relating to sick projects.

The department was asked to provide details including project’s name, contract number, site of the projecte, details of completed work, name of the contractor(s), contract amount, estimated cost, contract agreement date, project completion deadline, extended deadline, total expenditure, physical progress and whether the project has been running, completed or contract has been terminated.

The commission has sought details on sick projects although its investigations into other similar projects have been marred by delays.

Two years ago, the then chief commissioner Nabin Ghimire had told the Post that the commission was investigating possible corruption in about 100 contracts, but hardly any corruption case has been registered at the Special Court so far. Before the commission initiated investigation into some projects for possible irregularities, it had filed corruption cases against lawmaker and founder of Pappu Construction Hari Narayan Yadav and his son Sumit Rauniyar on the charge of building a sub-standard bridge over Babai River at Jabdighat in Bardiya.

Likewise, the anti-graft body also filed a corruption case against former minister Bikram Pandey, chairman of the Kalika Construction in December 2018, over substandard construction of the main canal of the Sikta Irrigation Project in December 2018.

But, Narayan Prasad Risal, spokesperson at the anti-graft body, said that the main motive behind the commission seeking details about the sick projects was to facilitate the completion of the projects as early as possible.

“The commission held discussions with stakeholders and made several recommendations on how to deal with the contracts related to sick projects,” he said.

He also admitted that the commission has yet to register corruption cases related to most of the projects under investigation. “I am not sure about to what stage the investigations have reached,” Risal added.

The commission had started taking interest in sick projects since the fiscal year 2018-19. In February 2019, the anti-graft body released a report on the status of sick projects which revealed that a total of 1,848 projects with a total contract value of Rs118 billion are incomplete and missed their deadlines. Moreover, the deadlines of 1,032 projects have not been extended.

The highest number of contracts related to sick projects were related to the Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (906), followed by the Ministry of Urban Development (442), and the Ministry of Energy, Water Resources and Irrigation (326), according to the report.

A follow-up report released in February 2020, showed some progress in the sick projects. As per the report, the work in projects related to 618 contracts with a combined contract value of Rs47.03 billion were completed in a year.

According to the follow-up report, there has been no progress in projects related to 1,202 contracts with a combined value of Rs86.44 billion.

Besides, the government’s tendency of awarding contracts without adequate preparations including site clearance, giving a large number of contracts to a few contractors has been blamed as one of the major reasons for the delay in the completion of projects.

In a speech, the then Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli had told the House of Representatives in February 2020 that just 18 contractor firms control 66.7 percent of the total contracts related to water supply projects.

The same firms occupied 47.6 percent of the road contracts and 44 percent of contracts on urban development.

Officials said that even though the anti-graft body has not taken action against potential irregularities in the construction projects, its mere interest has also had a positive impact on their implementation. “Some projects have been completed after repeated deadline extensions,” said Nepal.

When the commission released its first report on sick projects in February 2019, work on 906 roads and bridges were facing chronic delays. Now, the number of such projects according to the department is just over 150 projects. “The over 300 projects which were on the list of sick projects were completed after the government extended their deadlines,” said Nepal. “About 300 such projects were handed over to the provinces, about 100 contracts were terminated and there has been no progress on the rest.”