‘Stumbling-blocks’ delaying Shadadiya project of Industrial Zone – PAI report

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‘Almost two years late, only 23 % completed’

KUWAIT CITY, Aug 16: According to a report from the Public Authority for Industry (PAI), the project for the design, implementation, completion and maintenance of the infrastructure of Shadadiya Industrial Zone encounters ‘stumbling-blocks’ ”, reports Al-Qabas daily. The report explained that the completion rate of the major development project is not more than 23 percent, although the end of the contractual date for the implementation phase was October 15, 2020. The six main reasons for the failure of the project are – the contractor’s poor performance and the lack of suffi- cient manpower, low number of qualified technical workers to carry out the works of the contractor, the contractor’s inability to achieve the production rates planned by him, the contractor’s inability to coordinate the works and abide by the planned sequence, the contractor’s severe delay in all items of the project, and non-provision of the materials needed to complete the works, as well as lack of financial liquidity.

PAI therefore resorted at times to making some payments directly to the subcontractors. After confirming the failure of the main contractor, it withdrew the works from it in November 2020. It worked on preparing all the documents for offering the remaining works in the project. The Fatwa and Legislation Department was addressed to obtain their approval of the tender documents for the limited practice required to be submitted to the contractors in order to complete the scope of the special work in the implementation of the project, which is still under study by the concerned supervisory authority. According to industrial sources, the Kuwaiti industrial community has been waiting impatiently for long decades for the Al-Shadadiya Industrial Zone project.

Hundreds of industrial projects have been suspended due to its long delay. The largest segment affected by the faltering of the Shadadiya Industrial Zone are the young industrial entrepreneurs supported by the National Fund for Small and Medium Enterprises. It had promised to allocate ten percent of the land in this industrial zone, which has become afflicted and is expected to be completed after at least three years. These initiators pay thousands of dinars per month as rents for their factories, especially since their headquarters are not rented directly with the PAI. This means they are not available at subsidized prices, as the industrial rental meter ranges from KD 4 to KD 6 depending on the industrial area. Shadadiya Industrial Zone is located on an area of 5.8 million square meters.

It aims to address the problem of limited industrial land, and meet the needs of investors for the necessary spaces to establish their industrial projects, by providing 1,036 industrial plots for food and chemical industries and other various industrial activities, with different areas ranging from 1,000 to 10,000 square meters. Also, three plants for the treatment of industrial waste, and one plant for the treatment of sewage waste have been provided. Here are the stages that the Shadadiya Project has gone through – The main contractor submitted the contractual schedule for the project, and it was approved on September, 9, 2013.

The total project completion period is 1,095 days ending on July 9, 2016. In April of 2014, at the request of the main contractor of the project, the completion date of the project was extended by an additional 185 days, as a result of the project boundaries being moved by the Kuwait Municipality due to the passage of the Gulf train. In March 2017, the completion of the project was extended again for a period of 583 days due to the delay by the Municipal Council in approving the structural plan. In September 2018, the main contractor obtained a third extension for a period of 730 days due to the failure to approve the design documents based on the delay in approving the structural plan. The completion of the project was announced in the development plan in June 2019 and it was not completed. PAI announced the completion of the project on October 15, 2020.

This news has been read 13467 times!