Myanmar’s Mandalay city moves to cancel Thai company’s wastewater treatment contract
Mandalay city is taking steps to cancel a much-delayed wastewater treatment project because it says the Thai company that won the tender is unable to complete the project.
U Ye Lwin, mayor of Mandalay city, said the central industrial wastewater treatment project will be suspended because the municipal committee and the company both agreed it is no longer possible to continue the project.
“We are in negotiations with the company to cancel the contract and suspend it permanently under international procedures due to the delay from 2015 to 2020,” he told the regional parliament on June 9.
Tenders were invited for the project in 2013, and five companies submitted bids. In 2015, an agreement was signed with Hydrotek Public Co Ltd (Thailand) under a build-operate-transfer system with a construction period of two years and 50 years of operation.
The contract was reviewed and redesigned as the project had low capacity for wastewater treatment based on the inspection conducted when the project was 27 percent complete.
The Mandalay Industrial Zone management committee is negotiating with the city development committee to set three-tier wastewater disposal charges for different kinds of factories in the area.
At present the monthly wastewater disposal charge is set at K56,000 (US$40) for each of the 24 factories operating in the industrial zone, but smaller factories could not afford to pay.
“We have proposed that factories should be classified into small, medium, or big, and disposal charges should depend on the size of the factory,” said U Maung Maung Oo, the committee secretary.
“The city has also agreed to this plan,” he added, “but the new rates have yet to be set.”
The sewage pipe that dumps wastewater into the Dokhtawady River was built by the industrial zone.
Source: https://www.mmtimes.com/news/mandalay-city-moves-cancel-wastewater-treatment-contract.html
