Islamabad: Work on new airport comes to a halt

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Tariq Butt

ISLAMABAD: Construction of airside infrastructure of the Rs11.8 billion new Islamabad international airport has come to a grinding halt with the sponsor, Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), watching in utter helplessness and apathy.

Project Director Brig Bilal Hameed, who was reluctant to talk about the specific reasons behind the holding up of mega venture, expressed the hope during a chat with this correspondent that the construction work would resume in a week, but other sources did not see this happening.

He conceded that the work that included earthworks and construction of embankments for the runway, main access road to the site, runway, taxiway, apron, etc stood suspended for over three months.

“The measurement can’t be described in mathematical terms,” the project director said when asked about the percentage of work so far completed in the first phase of the new airport.

The physical work began in August 2008 after the contractors signed an agreement with the CAA to conclude it in 24 months. Just 20 per cent work had been completed when the contractors discontinued the construction, said a source.

Despite efforts, no representative of Lagan Construction of Ireland or its local partner, Husnain Cotex (HC), was available to discuss the reasons for the stoppage of work. Husnain, the owner of the construction giant, did not respond to the call.

The contractors were given Rs1.75 billion as mobilisation advance in exchange for guarantees offered by the HC as per terms of the contract before the start of construction work.

The groundbreaking of the new airport, spread over 3,600 acres, was performed in April 2007 by the previous government after a decade-long delay. It is located near Fateh Jang, 20km from Islamabad’s Zero Point, and is scheduled to start operating by end-2011, which seems unlikely given the pace of work on the project.

A large number of sub-contractors are gathering at the construction site of the new airport on Friday on hopes that this time they will get cheques for some Rs150 million from the HC as promised for which they did the work long ago but had not been made the payments.

They plan to stage a protest if they were not paid their money. They said that the work was partially suspended six months back before it was completely halted three months ago.

They said that the HC stopped the work after encountering cash flow problem of its own making, not caused by the CAA. They said that there was no hitch from the CAA, which in fact wanted early resumption of the work. But they held the project director responsible for the sorry state of the mega project. They said that physical scuffles between them and the representatives of the contractors have also taken place over the past few months due to non-payment of bills.

“We are alive to the problem as holdups do occur in major projects,” Brig Bilal Hameed said in generalized terms and added that he did not know the details of the problem between Lagan Construction and HC although the joint venture entered into by the two companies was with the CAA, which has been making payments to the HC, besides the mobilization advance given to it.

Sub-contractors said that Lagan Construction was keen to resolve the issue without any delay and added that the CAA was engaged in the process of issuing notices to the main contractors as provided in the agreement about the suspension of the work.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=209393