After more than two years of delay, construction works for Gatuna One Stop Border Post (OSBP) will be completed in the next three months. The revelation was made Wednesday by the Director-General of Rwanda Transport Development Agency (RTDA), Imena Munyampenda, when he appeared before the Senate. Munyampenda, together with the chairperson of RTDA’s board of directors, Leopold Mbereyaho, held discussions with the legislators as part of their assessment of what could be the reasons behind accounting and performance flaws at various government institutions as indicated by several reports by the Auditor General (AG). Though the reports have indicated unacceptable delays for the construction project of Gatuna OSBP, Munyampenda pledged that construction works here will be completed by April this year. “The project will be completed by April and ready for official commissioning,” he told the senators. The AG’s report for the fiscal year 2016/17, which was published in April last year, indicated that construction works for the Gatuna project had been delayed and not yet been completed by the time of RTDA audit in April 2018. The original contract for the project, which was supposed to end by 9th March 2016, was amicably terminated in July 2017 and payments of Rwf 3.1billion had been made to the previous contractor at the time of terminating the contract. The AG noted that due to the delays in completion of works, the total cost of the project had increased by 249 per cent from Rwf 6,345,986,395 to Rwf 15,823,319,250 after a new contract of Rwf 12,712,283,758 was signed with NPD Cotraco to complete the works. Senators urged officials at RTDA to strengthen their capacities to properly manage contracts and do the related financial accounting and reporting because the body is responsible for very critical and expensive works to build roads. The officials were also urged to follow up more closely with expropriation works that come with road construction projects because delays for compensation have also been noticed in many projects. “Wherever we go there are issues of expropriation and unfinished road construction projects. What are you doing to fix these issues?” the Senate’s Vice-President, Fatou Harerimana, asked RTDA officials. The latter promised to do better in terms of financial management and follow-up on projects, explaining that one of their challenges have been lack of experienced staff in those areas but plans have been initiated to reverse the situation. Sessions in the Senate to assess reasons behind accounting and performance flaws at various government institutions as indicated by several reports by the Auditor General (AG) were completed yesterday after MPs grilled officials from twelve major government institutions. After their scrutiny, the MPs will draw recommendations to be submitted to the Prime Minister for consideration. editorial@newtimes.co.rw
