{"id":43295,"date":"2017-03-27T11:56:35","date_gmt":"2017-03-27T09:56:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.times.mw\/?p=43295"},"modified":"2017-03-27T11:56:36","modified_gmt":"2017-03-27T09:56:36","slug":"more-twists-to-water-project","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/2017\/03\/27\/more-twists-to-water-project\/","title":{"rendered":"More twists to water project"},"content":{"rendered":"

Amid reports that Attorney General (AG), Kalekeni Kaphale, has come in to offer a legal opinion to the effect that some details in the $500 million Salima-Lilongwe water project should be reviewed, The Daily Times <\/em>has learnt that a feasibility study for the project has not yet been undertaken.<\/p>\n

But Lilongwe Water Board (LWB), Chief Executive Office (CEO), Alfonso Chikuni, has defended the arrangement, saying the agreement between the parastatal and the contractor was that a feasibility study should be undertaken after the contract has already been entered into.<\/p>\n

Khato Civils Limited is said to have won the $500 million (approximately K360 billion) contract following a restricted tender process in which six companies participated.<\/p>\n

The companies that were invited for bidding were Khato Civils, Sinohydro Corporation Limited, PW Engineering Limited, Mota-Engil, China Railway Company No 21 and CMC di Ravenna.<\/p>\n

In an interview yesterday, Chikuni said the project is supposed to be undertaken under the Engineering, Procurement and Construction (EPC) arrangement where the contractor is made responsible for all the activities from design, procurement, construction, to commissioning and handover of the project to the owner.<\/p>\n

Chikuni said the EPC arrangement was made because of an imminent water crisis that would hit Lilongwe if nothing was done quickly to address the current situation.<\/p>\n

\u201cI want to emphasise that no Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) was done because that would mean a lot of time could be spent on the study. Yet we all know that we need the water very badly.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe first phase of the project is that a feasibility study should be undertaken. This is a rare arrangement but elsewhere, it is commonly used. The World Bank withdrew from the Diamphwe Dam Project, so we need to do something quickly,\u201d Chikuni said.<\/p>\n

Last year, the African Development Bank and International Development Association withdrew their support to Lilongwe Water Board in November and December respectively citing, among other things, resettlement plan for people that would be affected by the project.<\/p>\n

The halting of the projects meant that a possible solution to imminent water crisis in Lilongwe is the Salima- Lilongwe water project.<\/p>\n

But some quarters observe that entering into such a huge project without the assessment, while government is the guarantor for the loans that the contractor will be obtaining, may be dangerous.<\/p>\n

However, according to Chikuni, a preliminary assessment found that there will be no harm in tapping water from Lake Malawi since the biggest threat to the lake is evaporation such that people should not worry that the project may fail.<\/p>\n

Earlier, the Malawi Law Society (MLS) warned that it will be illegal for government to proceed to the implementation stage of the project if provisions of the Environment Management Act have not been complied with.<\/p>\n

In a letter to Director of Environmental Affairs in the Ministry of Natural Resources, Energy and Mining, which we have seen, MLS President Khumbo Soko urged the government officer to ensure all the requirements of the Act are satisfied.<\/p>\n

Soko observed that the Act requires, among others, that certain projects require an EIA report and that such a report shall be open for public inspection.<\/p>\n

Spokesperson for the Department of Environment and Climate Change, Sangwani Phiri, also confirmed that the EIA had not been undertaken by the department.<\/p>\n

According to Chikuni, an independent expert is going to be identified so that they can do the feasibility study before the actual project commences.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, Khato Holdings Limited Chairperson, Simbi Phiri, has reportedly claimed that his company has already spent about $50 million on the project even though the feasibility study has not yet been undertaken.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Amid reports that Attorney General (AG), Kalekeni Kaphale, has come in to offer a legal opinion to the effect that some details in the $500 million Salima-Lilongwe water project should be reviewed, The Daily Times has learnt that a feasibility study for the project has not yet been undertaken. But Lilongwe Water Board (LWB), Chief […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":43298,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-43295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43299,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43295\/revisions\/43299"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43298"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/archive.times.mw\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}