Nam Dan: Highway upgrade damages local lighting system

The project to build a lighting system for Kim Lien Relic Site (Nam Dan) is behind schedule.

Construction of 2 projects of essential infrastructure

Recently, people and tourists visiting Uncle Ho's hometown in Nam Dan district on National Highway 46 were surprised to see that on both sides of the road, the system of electric poles, fiber optic cables, telecommunication poles and even fences and roofs were dug up by contractors, with many concrete pillars lying scattered along the road without anyone standing up to solve the problem.
According to the investigation, on October 13, 2014, the People's Committee of Nghe An province approved the investment project to build a public lighting system to serve tourists visiting the Kim Lien - Nam Dan relic site (temporarily called the public lighting system project). The project, invested by the People's Committee of Nam Dan district, is over 12km long, passing through the communes of Nam Giang, Nam Linh, Hung Tien, Xuan Hoa and Nam Dan town with a total investment of over 55 billion VND. According to the approval, the project includes concrete columns, underground cables, overhead cables and transformer stations. After 3 years of construction, the project is now behind schedule.

Specifically, the concrete foundation and transformer station have just been completed, while the underground cable lines and cables on National Highway 46 have not been deployed. The delay of the entire project has also caused some potential consequences for traffic accidents as well as inconvenience for people living in the area where the project passes through. Faced with this reality, people have also expressed their opinions and feedback to the local road management agency as well as the investor.
According to Mr. Nguyen Minh Tien - Director of Nam Dan District Construction Investment Project Management Board, the reason for the slow construction progress is that the capital source in the approval stage is still difficult. Of the total amount of over 55 billion VND, the construction and installation cost is over 40 billion VND and currently only over 20 billion VND has been arranged. The project is being constructed by Petroleum Construction Company 1 and Ngan Ha Company. In the above situation, Nam Dan District has sent a proposal to the Provincial People's Committee requesting the Departments of Planning and Investment and Finance to consider allocating capital, but it has not been arranged yet. Therefore, the contractors have temporarily stopped construction.

The contractor of the National Highway 46 road surface and foundation repair project dug up concrete electric poles and fiber optic cables.

It is worth mentioning that because the concrete pillars of this lighting system were constructed on the drainage ditch along National Highway 46, many of the lighting pillars were dug up from the ground and "exposed" on the roadside. Through investigation, it is known that while the above project was behind schedule, in October 2017, the Vietnam Road Administration authorized the Road Management Department 2 in Nghe An to be the investor of the project "Repairing the foundation and road surface of National Highway 46, section Km 24 to Km 31". The project was awarded to a joint venture of contractors including: Joint Stock Company 484, Thinh Hung Company Limited and Traffic Construction Management Joint Stock Company 236. Therefore, during the implementation of the project, especially on the section passing through Nam Linh, Nam Giang and Kim Lien communes, many lighting pillars were dug up.

Faced with this reality, through discussion with Mr. Mai Quang Trung - Chief Supervision Consultant of Nghe An Investment and Construction Joint Stock Company, the unit supervising the entire route learned: According to approval, the construction contract of the project was carried out from October 16, 2017 to March 4, 2018. During the construction process, we reviewed and counted on the route from Km24 to Km31, there were a number of essential works such as optical cables, power lines, power poles, telecommunication poles... located within the construction scope of the project, affecting the construction of the project.

To ensure the safety of essential infrastructure during construction, on November 6, 2017, the Road Management Department 2 sent a document to the People's Committee of Nam Dan district requesting to organize propaganda and dialogue so that people understand and support the project construction policy and direct relevant departments and offices to speed up the inventory, develop plans to support and compensate for land and assets on land and organize site clearance and relocation of essential works within the construction area to hand over to the contractor. However, the district and other units have not cooperated with us.

Contractor for the National Highway 46 Drainage Project.

However, since the construction began, the contractor has not coordinated with us in agreeing on the construction plan or having a record of the inventory to relocate some of the columns they dug up due to overlapping positions. The contractor has not had any working session on this issue. From the above perspectives, it can be seen that the occurrence of this incident is not only the responsibility of the contractors when working together on the route, but also clearly shows the responsibility of coordination of the relevant parties in project management according to the provisions of law.