RC orders arrest of contractor due to shoddy job

From RENATUS MASUGULIKO in Geita

GEITA Regional Commissioner (RC), Eng Robert Gabriel, has ordered the arrest of a contractor, Mauza Nyakirang’agani, who is the owner of Nyakirang’agani Construction LTD handling a 3.5 Km road worth 4.1bn/- from Nyerere to Kivukoni streets in Geita Township on grounds of Irresponsibility and exposing the residents to danger.

This came following claims that the contractor has carelessly placed sand remains from roads, which floods their houses during rainfall and jeopardising their lives. Among such claims include using substandard materials as well as not paying the labourers since May last year despite the fact that the contractor has been obtaining funds from the government.
Eng Gabriel also directed the Prevention and Combating of Corruption Bureau (PCCB) to investigate on how the company came about the contract even though he lacked the necessary requirements to be able to fulfill the project. He issued the directives yesterday when he made a surprise visit at the project area to witness for himself concerns presented to him by the residents.
“PCCB should also identify the banks responsible for authorising the company while knowing that its accounts lacked sufficient balance as per the specification,” said Eng Gabriel. On top of the directives, the RC said that the company should never be granted any other contract for it is not the first time such irregularities are occurring.
According to the District Executive Director (DED), Mr Modestus Apronary, the project should have been completed by March 8, this year but it is currently at 55 per cent. Mr Apronary also observed that a sum of 140m/- was deposited in the contractor’s account early this month for paying the labourers wages but none of them has been paid up to now.
“As I am speaking, all the money has been withdrawn from the account and the contractor is nowhere to be seen since the deposit was done,” noted Mr Apronary. He revealed that the contracting laws demand that in the case of a contractor not completing a project on time, 4m/- should be scraped from his payment from the day that the project was to be completed.
The DED noted that already 20m/- has been deducted from the contract due to that ground and they will continue doing that for 100 days before officially risk cancelling the whole agreement. The Supervisor, Laurent Mwita when asked to give clarification, confirmed to have not paid the labourers since last year. He also said that the reason behind their not completing the project on time was due to lack of funds.
The RC ordered the OCD to arrest the supervisor instead and continue looking for the contractor who is also the owner of the company carrying out the project.