Water plant worth over 41 billion VND 'shelved' due to lack of funds to review settlement records?

According to the People's Committee of Que Phong district, the Kim Son town water plant has a designed capacity of 1,500m3/day and night. When completed, the plant will provide clean water to more than 1,000 households in Kim Son town and surrounding areas including Muong Noc and Tien Phong communes.

Treatment system of Kim Son town clean water plant. Photo: Nhat Lan

The project includes 3 packages: Construction of treatment stations, 35kV power lines and transformer stations (implemented in December 2010, completed in December 2012); Installation of level I and level II pipelines (implemented in October 2015, completed in June 2015); Connection to consumers (implemented in July 2017, completed in November 2017).

The connection to households has been carried out to 709 households; water testing has been conducted and free clean water has been provided to households that have registered to use 2 hours/day since April 2018.

Since 2018, the People's Committee of Que Phong district has issued documents asking for opinions from the Provincial People's Committee and departments and branches on the organization of human resources and the operation mechanism of the Water Plant; asking for opinions on temporarily assigning the management and operation of the Water Plant while waiting for the departments and branches to guide on the operation mechanism, management, and water usage unit price, etc.

Equipment system of Level II pumping station of Kim Son town clean water plant. Photo: Nhat Lan

In June 2018, the Provincial People's Committee issued Document 3875/UBND-KT on the mechanism for operating and managing Kim Son Town Water Plant, directing the People's Committee of Que Phong District to conduct bidding to select a water supply unit to carry out the activities of exploiting, producing, transmitting and trading clean water in accordance with current laws. Organize the acceptance of the project, if the quality is met, it will be transferred to the new management apparatus.

After receiving instructions from the Provincial People's Committee and guidance from departments and branches, the Que Phong District People's Committee directed the Project Management Board to complete the acceptance work; at the same time, it prepared a competitive bidding dossier. However, because the project has not yet been finalized for investment capital, it has not been able to bid for management and operation.

Kim Son town water plant (Que Phong district). Photo: Nhat Lan

So when will the settlement of investment capital for the Kim Son town water plant be completed? According to an official of the Que Phong District People's Committee, the project settlement dossier was submitted to the Department of Finance for approval in May 2019. However, because there is no funding to submit for the review and approval of the completed investment capital settlement, the dossier has not been approved yet.

This person added: “In 2019, the project did not have a capital plan, so the People's Committee of Que Phong district sent a document requesting the Department of Finance to consider and resolve…”.