Kathmandu,
Nov. 26
Federation of
Contractors Association of Nepal (FCAN) has postponed its Prime Minister's
Office picketing programme.
Following a
brief dialogue with Minister for Physical Infrastructure and Transport Basanta
Kumar Nembang on Tuesday afternoon, the contractors called off the protest
programme which they had started from Monday.
Issuing a
press statement in the evening, FCAN informed that it had postponed Baluwatar
picketing as the talks with the minister concluded positively. With this, the
state and district association of FCAN have also halted their programme to
picket the Chief Ministers’ Offices and District Administrative Offices
respectively.
Minister
Nembang said that the government would bring out rules and policies so as to
address the demands of the contractors.
However, he
maintained that the responsibility of formulating business-friendly laws and
rules was of the Public Procurement Monitoring Office, and the Ministry of
Physical Infrastructure and Transport would put its efforts to create
business-friendly regime.
"The
government does not have intention to discourage Nepali entrepreneurs as they
have the liability to support the government in developing necessary physical
infrastructure in the country," he said.
FCAN President
Rabi Singh said that the protest programmes were halted for the time being also
considering the health of Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli who underwent an
appendicitis operation on Tuesday morning.
But FCAN said
that along with the dialogue with the government, other programmes of protests
would continue.
It has
launched a protest programmes to draw the attention of the Prime Minister to
extend the deadline of the pending infrastructure projects, access to a bank
credit line to bid government project. The government has amended the Public Procurement
Laws multiple times to address the demands of the contractors.
Earlier, on
Monday, PM Oli had directed the ministers and secretaries and concerned
government executing agencies to scrap the contract with the contractors who
fail to complete infrastructure construction.
Addressing the
four-monthly review meeting of the
current fiscal year 2019/20, the PM expressed serious concerns over the poor
performance of capital budget and directed the senior government officials to
prepare a list of projects with their progress and performance within 15 days
and immediately annul the contracts with the contractors and assign the work to
other construction companies.
PM Oli also
said that he did not want to hear the same story of the same contractors not
completing the same projects again.
Published in The Rising Nepal daily on 27 November 2019.
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