Waste of more than 9.3 billion VND at water plant in Hoang Mai town

Mistake after mistake

Quynh Loc Commune is located next to Hoang Mai Industrial Park. People in this area have always had difficulty finding water sources, because the Southeast area adjacent to Lach Con is saline, and the surrounding areas are surrounded by factories and enterprises. In 2006, from the support capital of the Danish International Development Agency (DANIDA), the State budget and from the contributions of people in the benefiting area,domestic water supply planthas a total capacity of 45m³/h, the goal of providing clean water for all people in Quynh Loc commune is invested in construction.

Quynh Loc commune's domestic water supply plant is located at the foot of a limestone mountain. According to local residents, after using this water, there is a lot of limestone residue stuck to household appliances, so they dare not use it. Photo: Tien Dong

This project is divided into 2 phases, phase 1 started on April 1, 2006 and completed on May 5, 2006, with the goal of supplying domestic water to hamlets 6 and 7 of Quynh Loc commune, with a capacity of 15m³/h. On May 17, 2006, the project was accepted and put into use and approved for completion according to Decision No. 513 of the People's Committee of Quynh Luu district (before Hoang Mai town was separated) with a total approved value of more than 1,686 billion VND, of which DANIDA supported 80% and beneficiaries contributed 20%.

After the project was completed, it was put into use to supply water to hamlets 6 and 7. However, the operation period was only 3 months. Not to mention, the operation process did not collect water money from the people. Many households that benefited from this project said that after using it, there was a lot of limestone residue stuck to their household appliances so they did not dare to use it; not to mention that there were some areas where the water flowed up with difficulty due to the difference in height. That is why the water plant had to stop operating.

The factory's equipment has been left exposed to the sun and rain and has yet to be treated. Photo: Tien Dong

It is worth mentioning that when this project had just completed phase 1, it was accused of not being constructed according to the design and being accepted over budget. Therefore, on August 28, 2006,People's Committee of Quynh Luu districtAn inspection team was established to handle the matter. Afterwards, the inspection team pointed out a number of violations in the first phase of this project, such as: There were still some shortcomings and violations in the procedural process; Some routes had not been constructed; Supervision consultants were not regularly present at the construction site; The investor and the Project Management Board of Quynh Loc commune had loosened inspection, supervision of the project, and capital management. This led to the incorrect acceptance of the construction volume of more than 197 million VND; 466m of 48mm diameter pipeline and 1,619m of 34mm diameter pipeline worth more than 51 million VND had not been constructed; Materials of the wrong type led to a discrepancy of more than 37 million VND; Overpayment of other costs was nearly 23 million VND. On December 28, 2006, the People's Committee of Quynh Luu district approved the inspection conclusion to recover more than 100 million VND due to incorrect acceptance and payment of construction volume and overpayment of costs for preparing technical economic reports.

Although the first phase was soon exposed to shortcomings and low efficiency, at the end of 2006, the plan to implement the second phase was still approved and construction began in April 2009. The goal of this phase is to supply water to hamlets 1, 2, 3A, 3B, 4, 5, 8, 9A, 9B and 10 of Quynh Loc commune with an approved investment cost of more than 7,656 billion VND. Of which, the capital from the National Target Program for clean water and rural environmental sanitation is 94%, the commune budget contributes 6%.

Since its completion, this project has only been in operation for a short time before being... "shelved". Photo: Tien Dong

Entering phase 2, this project continued to reveal violations, in which the basic construction management lacked responsibility, leading to missing documents and lost documents; Checking the bidding documents of the main contractor, Phu Hai Limited Liability Company (headquartered in Vinh city), the competent authority determined that the capacity and experience did not meet the requirements of the bidding documents (no business registration in the field of: Construction of technical infrastructure works) but the bidding consultant still passed the test. The bidding expert group did not see the bidding professional certificates of the expert group members; The water quality had CaCo content₃is 390mlg/liter exceeding the prescribed level, the consulting unit has designed additional water softening equipment but this equipment has not been tested during and after installation. The water quality after installation has not been tested. The equipment has not been tested for 72 consecutive hours as prescribed; The minutes of equipment test acceptance dated May 29, 2010 have not been signed but the project is still accepted and put into use.

In 2017, after fixing the pipeline problems in villages 6 and 7 to conduct a trial run, the power station of the factory caught fire, so the factory could not be operated in the end. In the photo is the house for the pump system. Photo: Tien Dong

Struggling to find a solution

Although completed in July 2010, the Quynh Loc Commune Water Supply Plant has not been in operation since then. In particular, in early 2015, the People's Committee of Quynh Loc Commune, based on the direction of the People's Committee of Hoang Mai Town (which was now separated from Quynh Luu District), held a meeting and invited relevant units to discuss a plan to repair this project.

According to the plan, phase 1 of repairing the water supply system serving villages 6 and 7, if it operates stably and has high consensus from the people, will continue to invest in repairing. However, when meeting with people to get opinions, the rate of agreement for the repair reached less than 20%, so this plan was shelved. Many local people said that the location of the factory is low and pushed up high, on the one hand, causing large power consumption, on the other hand, the water supply is weak and of poor quality. The repair will be costly, while it is not certain that it will operate effectively.

The inside of the operator's house was dilapidated. Photo: Tien Dong

Finally, the temporary solution was to organize a bidding for the exploitation and use of the water plant. However, after that, the People's Committee of Quynh Loc commune announced 2 rounds but there was no contractor. In April 2017, the People's Committee of Quynh Loc commune once again held a meeting to discuss solutions and agreed that the first step was to repair and restore the operation of the water plant serving villages 6 and 7, then find the next solution. When carrying out the repairs, the local government mobilized 500,000 VND from each household in these 2 villages.

However, after fixing the pipeline problems in villages 6 and 7 to conduct a trial run, the power station of the factory caught fire. At this time, local people continued to have the opinion that they should not try to repair this project because it would not bring any results while the clean water plant of Hoang Mai town had also been completed, if connected from here the cost might be lower. Since then, the project continued to be "shelved".

Up to now, according to our observations, the operating system, suction machine, filter tank, storage tank, and pump in the center have degraded; the pipeline system to the hamlets has been damaged due to long-term disuse.

Currently, many of the factory's equipment have been damaged. In the photo, the corrugated iron water tank cover has been ripped off. Photo: Tien Dong

At the Inspection Conclusion dated October 21, 2019 ofPeople's Committee of Hoang Mai townalso requested the People's Committee of Quynh Loc commune to develop plans to handle this water plant according to regulations. Mr. Nguyen Huu Tuy - Chairman of the People's Committee of Quynh Loc commune said that the handling of this project has not yet been implemented. Mr. Tuy said that this project was carried out by previous chairmen, while he had just taken over the job so he did not understand clearly, it was necessary to review related records and documents to know.

It can be seen that the investment in building the Quynh Loc Commune Water Plant is ineffective but there is no solution to deal with it, causing great waste and frustration for the local people. In order to prevent further damage to this project, the local government and relevant parties need to seriously intervene and handle it thoroughly.