Vietnam blacklists firms over Dyke project
HANOI - Vietnam has barred eight construction firms
from tendering for contracts for using sub-specification
concrete on an Asian Development Bank-funded flood
prevention project, agricultural ministry officials said
Tuesday.
The eight companies could also face fines of more than
$20,000 each for their work on a key six-kilometre
section of dyke along the Red River around the capital,
the deputy director of the ministry's capital projects
department, Nguyen Ngoc Quang, told AFP.
Ministry engineers are assessing the risks of the cheaper
concrete, but an initial survey suggested the dyke
remained sound, Quang said.
The firms used five different sorts of concrete, only three
of which were specified in the tender from the ADB,
which funded 80 percent of the project's $3.5 million
cost.
Project deputy director Dang Van Minh acknowledged
the firms had made money using the non-specification
concrete, but insisted one of the brands had been used in
other major projects such as the Song Da dam and
imposed no safety risk.
The ADB has been funding a 65-kilometre network of
dykes around the capital to improve flood defences.
Vietnam has been hit by a series of disastrous floods in
recent years in both the Mekong delta and the central
coast.
Agence France Presse - March 7, 2001.
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