Million dollar projects in disarray

In early August, at the Dam Ha District 28/1 central square project, Giao Thong Newspaper reporters saw only a few trucks carrying filling materials and an excavator on the construction site to fill in the truck tire tracks to avoid getting stuck.

Going deep into the center of the project, everywhere there is unfinished construction, materials are piled up. In the area adjacent to the households, the dirt road serving the project construction is full of mud. In some areas, muddy water flows from the project area to the outside, causing mud.

A young man who introduced himself as a construction site manager and security guard said that the construction project was very slow due to a lack of materials for leveling the ground. "In the past few days, trucks carrying leveling materials have only been operating sporadically," he said.

In addition, the route for transporting filling materials for the project from National Highway 18 through the main axis of Dam Ha town and into Le Luong street has not been sprayed with water regularly to suppress dust, causing heavy dust, affecting people traveling on this road section.

Mr. D.TH, who lives near the project area, said that when the Dam Ha 28/1 central square project began, people in town were very excited because there would be a project of such a grand scale that would meet the needs of walking space and services for the people.

"However, the project is progressing very slowly, there are times when there is no construction, and the roads are covered in dust and dirt. If it continues like this, I don't know when the project will be completed," Mr. H wondered.

What is the cause?

The Dam Ha 28/1 central square project started construction in September 2022. The project's goal is to create a unique complex of works, attracting tourists to visit, serving as a basis for forming an urban area with modern architectural space and landscape, contributing to the socio-economic development of Dam Ha district.

The project is built on an area of ​​5.23 hectares, located on Le Luong Street, Dam Ha Town. Items include: Square area, green park and landscape lake, technical infrastructure.

In particular, the central square alone has an area of ​​nearly 18,031m2, designed with 1 floor, 3.6m high, with yard, parking lot, fountain, relief, lighting, Led screen...

The project is invested by the District Construction Investment Project Management Board (DPMB). The project was approved on December 9, 2021 at VND 145.44 billion, including: Construction and installation of over VND 104.5 billion, equipment of nearly VND 5.5 billion, site clearance of VND 27 billion, and project management of nearly VND 1.6 billion.

However, on March 3, 2023, the People's Committee of Dam Ha district decided to adjust the project to over 158.4 billion VND. Of which, construction and installation is nearly 109 billion VND, site clearance is over 35 billion VND, project management is over 1.4 billion VND... According to the decision, the project must be completed by September 2024.

Speaking with Giao Thong Newspaper reporter, Mr. Nguyen Hai Hieu, Director of Dam Ha District Construction Investment Project Management Board, admitted that the Dam Ha District Central Square project on January 28 will certainly not be completed on schedule as originally planned... Because currently, the project has only completed about 60% of the items, equivalent to the disbursement rate of 95.445/158.466 billion VND.

The reason for the current slow progress is the lack of filling materials. Because the project needs about 20,000m3 of soil for filling.

However, the process of preparing procedures for granting the source of land leveling is very time-consuming. When the area of ​​material granted is only loaded and excavated for a short time, the period expires, so the procedure for extension must be completed.

Recently, the supply of filling materials has been resumed, but this time, the weather is rainy, so vehicles cannot circulate.

"There is no shortage of capital for the project, but due to a lack of filling materials, there were times when the funds could not be disbursed and had to be transferred to another project. With the current situation, the project will have to be delayed until mid-2025 to be completed," Mr. Hieu informed.

According to Mr. Ha, currently, due to the heavy rain, the transportation of landfill materials is facing many difficulties. Therefore, the unit requests the competent authority to consider and continue to extend the time for exploiting landfill materials, if the deadline has expired and this work has not been completed.

Along with that, the estimated cost of completing the relief is up to more than ten billion VND, requiring additional funding. Currently, the authorities are preparing steps for the architectural competition and allocating resources when the model is selected.