By Chandrasena Marasinghe
The much-hyped Wild Elephant Detention Centre in
Horowpathana, established as a solution to the worsening human-elephant
conflict, was in fact a pretext to plunder public money and to rob forest lands
of its valuable timber, Ceylon Today learns. The project itself can be termed as an unsuccessful venture.
Audits have revealed that an excess of Rs 85 million has been incurred during the construction process of this Rs 230 million project.
However, if taken into account the use of substandard material for the construction of the Centre, then the excess can go up to Rs 150 million.
Nearly 1882 hectares of land in the Galapitigala Forest Reserve in Ritigala have been cleared of its trees to build an electric fence to contain elephants to a limited area, in order to prevent them from causing damages to cultivations and residences.
An investigation by the Auditor General has revealed that valuable timber such as ebony and satinwood, has been cleared in a 23 kilometre long, 200 metre wide area, ostensibly, to build an electric fence.
The Cabinet approved the project proposal, presented by Ministers of Environment and Wildlife, on 22 March 2012. The project was named Horowpathana project.
The Cabinet paper described the project as a viable solution to the human-elephant conflict in which nearly 60-70 people and some 200-300 elephants are killed every year. The objective was to detain the wild elephants in this Centre.
Two ministers involved
The 1882 hectare land earlier came under the purview of the Forest Department
and it was later taken over by the Department of Wildlife Conservation.
Minister of Environment, Anura Priyadarshana Yapa and Minister of Peasants Services and Wildlife, S.M. Chandrasena signed the Cabinet paper.
The project was contracted to three firms. They were assigned to construct the elephant fence, to build footbridges around the centre and to repair the tanks in the land.
The construction of the 23-kilometre electric fence was contracted to the National Machinery Company under the State Engineering Corporation for Rs 953.8 million. They were also tasked with clearing 200-metre wide land area.
RADCO of Rajagiriya was given the Rs 26.02 million contract to build the foot bridges while an individual at the address, Lanka Petroleum Station, Mihintale, was given the Rs 11.36 million contract to build three tanks in the elephant centre. The value of the contracts of the entire project is Rs 226.9 million (Rs 226,926,491). However, the contractors have been paid Rs 83,685,272 in excess, which amounts to one third of the entire project cost.
Rs 72,817,562 has been paid to the National Machinery Company, for the construction of the elephant fence; Rs 2,450,396 paid to RADCO for the construction of the footbridges and Rs 8,417,314 has been paid to the contractor for repairing three tanks in Mahapuliyankulama, Pahe Kanuwa and Diyambalagasweva.
The construction of the electric fence was to be completed by 30 October 2010, but it had not been completed till January 2015.
RADCO had built only 44 of the 77 bridges by 23 April 2015. They had been paid Rs 14,318,712 for the task.
The tanks were to be completed by 1 December 2012, but they were actually completed by 12 September 2013. The fine of Rs 357,966 for the delay was not charged from the contractor.
Following are the faults shown in the Audit report in terms of the three contracts.
Plot thickens
The construction of the electric fence needed to be done under the supervision of an engineer or a technical officer. But, only a clerk supervised the project, which is a violation of the agreement. This has affected the quality of the concrete pillars.
Instead of 20 mm iron rods, 8-13 mm rods have been used for concrete. Accordingly, the payment amounts to Rs 875 for a metre of iron rods, and 48,960 metres would cost Rs 42,840,000.
The Deputy General Manager has approved 60 tonnes of 20 mm iron rods for 2,099 concrete pillars by 22 April 2015. But, the inventories in the work site show that 102 tonnes of rods have been used. A misappropriation of Rs 7,728,000 has taken place due to the use of 42 rods in excess.
Rs 1,954,560 has been paid for granite and sand.
Unconfirmed audit sources point to a plunder of timber in the Ritigala Forest in the guise of construction of an electric fence. Nearly 16 km of thick forest and 7 km of medium density forest has been cleared for the electric fence. No records are found about the valuable trees such as ebony and satinwood that were felled. Audits have questioned the removal of timber and whether it was done by either the Forest Reserve Department, or the Wildlife Department, or by the private contractor. They have also questioned whether the timber was auctioned or used for the department purposes.
In footbridges, the base is not 4 inches as agreed. Although the reinforcement iron rods needed to be laid 6X6 inches as per the agreement, it was 8X8 inches.
The quality of the concrete has not been tested.
The contract for tank building has been offered without following the tender procedure for the contracts valued over Rs 5 million.
The 10% guarantee money, which should be retained, has been ignored and the entire amount has been paid to the contractor.
The late charge of Rs 357,966 has not been levied from the contractor.
Rs 1,012,260 has been paid for additional work, which has not been clarified.
The contractor has been paid Rs 2,489,451 in excess.
Grass has not been laid according to the agreement in the construction of Mahapuliyankulama tank and that has caused washing away of 75% of the tank bund.
The Peasant Services Engineer and the Assistant Director have shown that the tank bund will erode in a short period.
However, an excess payment of Rs 3,566,250 has been made for 8,983 cubic metres of construction of tanks, the auditors have pointed out.
No comments:
Post a Comment