On June 12, once again, the time of commercial operation of the Ben Thanh – Suoi Tien metro line was postponed to November 2024 (instead of October). A project that only takes about 5 years to complete is still waiting for 15 years. Therefore, if we wait another month, people’s patience will not be tested any more.
But, the lack of trust too many times, even if justified by any “objective” reason, still becomes an “indicator” of distrust in the project management and administration capacity of both the government and the public. partner.
Do the math, 20 years is enough for 4 terms in the most dynamic city in the country!
Up to now, this metro line is facing a series of problems from project legality, contracts, programs to conflicts between contractors, complaints to investors… Although there have been measures to resolve them, progress has been made. The speed is still slow, there are even some work packages that have not been fixed or improved.
Specifically, the important tasks that the Management Board of Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway (MAUR) – the No. 1 metro investor – stated in the report dated June 10 are as follows: Up to now, the General Consulting unit NJPT has not completed training according to the roadmap, including personnel training and knowledge transfer programs. As for contractor Hitachi, the “trial-run” milestone was pushed back to November instead of October as planned, leading to a further extension of the project progress. “This is not in compliance with the Japanese Ambassador’s response note sent to the leadership of the Ho Chi Minh City People’s Committee on May 2” – according to MAUR’s announcement.
20 years for a project, there must be many problems in terms of mechanism, coordination, operational capacity, organization… Along with many arising consequences, including additional costs that the contractor must bear. take.
Obviously, continuing delay periods without being able to complete procedures for adjusting construction time will lead to delayed disbursement to contractors. Not to mention, every delay in the deadline affects the import of goods in the CP3 bidding package (of contractor Hitachi), because the list of tax-free imported goods has not been extended. While this is a procurement package for electromechanical equipment, locomotives, rolling stock, rails, operation and maintenance training – playing an important role in bringing the project into commercial operation.
Up to now, contractor Hitachi has filed a complaint asking the investor to pay the costs incurred for extending the project completion time, with a compensation claim of about 23,721 billion yen, equivalent to nearly 4,000 billion VND. But, is that arising only due to the investor’s delay, and the contractor is completely “innocent”? On June 6, responding to the press, MAUR said: most of the complaints of contractors at the project were rejected by General Counsel NJPT because of insufficient legal basis.
Meanwhile, the overall progress was significantly affected due to lack of coordination between contractors in the process of preparing for acceptance to put the project into commercial exploitation.
Of course, this complaint is quite common around the world. What is unusual is that the contractor has complained about all bidding packages throughout the implementation process to date. The city government’s viewpoint is quite clear and… civilized, when the City People’s Committee leaders agreed to accelerate the solution of using the Dispute Resolution Board (DAB) as proposed by contractor Hitachi and the Deputy Ambassador of Japan to Vietnam. Male.
The head of the city government, Mr. Phan Van Mai and Japanese Ambassador Yamada Takio sat down, had a frank discussion and made a commitment to take action to soon put metro line No. 1 into operation as a symbol for the city. Vietnam – Japan “comprehensive strategic partnership” relationship.
City citizens have the right to demand that the government concretize its responsibilities with action results – with the exact time of metro commercial operation, but cannot and must not delay any further. Likewise, we place our trust in the spirit of samurai – a central core of Japanese morality and honor, considered the standard of action since the Kamakura period.
For both sides, the metro is a test, it has no room for “back roads”, from next November!