Part of the drainage project under way at Hai Ba Trung Street in District 1.

Another Japanese contractor constructing another package of the project, N.E.S JV, has also wrecked the traffic light system at Tran Hung Dao –Tran Binh Trong, Tran Hung Dao– Nguyen Van Cu and Calmette– Nguyen Cong Tru intersections apart from damaging street light cables at several other sections.

Hai said traffic and street light systems began to suffer damages by construction of the Environment Sanitation Project in 2007 but the damage drastically increased since last year.

There have been 27 cases of traffic lights being damaged in 2008: 12 by Shimizu, five by N.E.S JV and the rest by China State Construction Engineering Corporation, Truong Tho Construction Joint Stock Company and Hanoi Construction Corporation.

Sapulico said it had to temporarily reconnect traffic light cables on the street surface whenever such incidents happened.

The company said the total costs to repair damage to traffic and street lights since 2008, due to the project’s construction, was estimated at around VND1.1 billion (US$64,300). However, Sapulico has not received a single dong from the project’s management board and involved contractors, although they had admitted their responsibility and agreed to compensate, company officials said.

“We’ve had to wait for the compensation for a long time because the contractors have repeatedly delayed payment,” Hai said.

Unfeasible solutions

The HCMC Department of Transport has recently censured relevant agencies for repeated breaches of responsibility in resurfacing a number of streets dug up for the drainage project.

The management board of the city’s Environment Sanitation Project and the consultant CDM Company of the US will have to assess construction work and pay up only after the contractor has properly resurfaced the streets, it said.

This is the fourth time the department has censured the project management board on the issue.

The department also said the project’s management board and the consultant had not paid enough attention to inspecting street resurfacing by the contractors.

Plans to reduce traffic

Meanwhile, the city administration has instructed the Department of Transport to work with HCMC Research and Development Institute and authorities in central districts to draft a plan that would ban vehicles on certain streets and at certain times.

The plan includes the setting up of automated toll stations (or electronic road pricing) to collect fees on vehicles.

The city is also seeking approval by the Ministry of Finance for a plan to charge fees per vehicle in a bid to cut down the number of vehicles on the road. This plan had already been rejected several times.

The proposal includes higher taxes and stricter requirements for registration of new motorbikes and cars in the city as well as including permanent residence as a criterion for registering vehicles in the southern hub to prevent an increase in the number of motorbikes migrating to the city.

A campaign to encourage residents to use buses to reduce the number of motorbikes on the streets, launched last September, disappeared into obscurity just a month later.

In other measures, the Ministry of Public Security has been asked to review implementation of the Residence Law to slow down the population increase in HCMC due to migration. Hanoi and HCMC have also been asked to increase public transportation and relocate production facilities, hospitals and university to the outskirts.

Source: Thanhnien News