ADJUMANI, UGANDA: The Adjumani RDC Mr. Taban Data Peter has cautioned the district procurement officials against awarding Development Response to Displacement Impact Projects (DRDIP)contracts to dubious contractors who ends up delivering second-rate work
“The procurement officials award contracts to some dubious contractors simply because they have soft hands but when it comes to contract management they deliver substandard work”.
He was today March 14, 2023, addressing contractors, Community Project Management committees (CPMC) officials and sub county Chairpersons during the ground-breaking ceremony of the Intensive care Unit facility in Adjumani hospital.
The contract for the building and equipping of the Intensive care Unit was awarded to Zawadi Construction Company Limited at the contract sum of shs 1.6 bn and the contract duration is 6 months,
The DRDIP desk officer Mr. Gulam Abubakar said, Adjumani district is implementing 27 infrastructure sub projects under the 7th disbursement of DRDIP in host communities and refugees’ settlements.
Mr. Gulam Abubakar divulged the 27 sub projects have a total value of shs14bn and all the 27 sub projects have a completion time line of 6 months and that is the when DRDIP first phase ends.
The Adjumani principal assistant CAO Mr. Edema Richard has said the goal of DRDIP is to address the adverse effects of hosting refugees by improving socio-economic services, infrastructure, expanding livelihood opportunities and enhancing environmental protection.
Mr. Edema Richard said, the six months contract duration is not a tight rope because, DRDIP is ending in 6 months from now and the second phase will be determined by the success of the first phase and appealed to the contractors to heighten their workmanship and deliver quality services.
The representatives of contractors Mr. Amaza Emmanuel who is the managing director of Zawadi Construction limited has appealed to the leaders in Adjumani to interest themselves in building the capacity of local contractors to avoid overdependence on National contractors even for delivering small volume contracts.
Besides Mr. Amaza Emmanuel notes that local contractors are easy to manage since they live within the district and could therefore be easily restrained.
Already out of the 27 infrastructure contracts under the 7th disbursement two contractors have been identified as difficult and incorrigible since they have continually tried to deviate from the contract specifications while others are perpetually not at site.
Such contractors according to an official from the office CAO will have to be restrained and on the extreme their contracts will have to be terminated with the view of blacklisting.
As the first phase of DRDIP is on the verge of closing, Adjumani district has already benefited from 364 projects which have been funded. This includes;56 infrastructures,155 projects in environment and 155 in livelihood according to a preliminary report issued by the desk officer Mr. Gulam Abubakar.
DRDIP which is a world Bank project designed for refugees hosting districts started operations in 2017-2018 financial year but the actual implementation of sub projects kicked off in 2018-2019 financial year. In the five years project life span, Adjumani district has received a cumulative disbursement of shs 55.2bn.
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