FCAN postpones its protest programmes

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.