Northern Region Water Board (NRWB) has said it is targeting August next year to complete the Mzimba Integrated Urban Water and Sanitation Project after the financiers allowed them to go ahead.
NRWB has lately come under the spotlight for awarding the contract at $3.9 million more than Sawa Group’s bid price of $10.1 million.
Speaking yesterday after meeting the joint parliamentary committee that is probing the issue, NRWB chief executive officer Titus Mtegha ruled out possible cancellation of the project.
“We are earmarking August as a completion month. We understand that there was a heated debate on the error. We acknowledge the error. We corrected it and showed it to our financiers, the African Development Bank (AfDB). They understood our error and have since given us the go-ahead. So, we are doing the project and the contractor is already on the ground,” he said.
Mtegha said after correcting the error, a contract of $14.7million was signed and awarded to Sawa Group whose bid was among the six bidding companies that met the requirements.
Co-chairperson of the joint parliamentary committee, Alekeni Menyani, expressed satisfaction with the cooperation they got from NRWB. He promised to release the final results of the inquiry after a week.
Mzimba Integrated Urban Water and Sanitation Project is being funded by AfDB to the tune of $5 million, Opec Fund for International Development at $14.85 million and the Government of Malawi through NRWB at $3 million.
