Making
no progress after two years, the Van Phong international transshipment port
project in central Khanh Hoa Province has been postponed, resulting in a waste
of millions of dollar.
The US$3.6-billion project to build Vietnam’s
first international transshipment port in Van Ninh District is now a deserted
construction site with thousands of steel and concrete stakes left rusting on
the sand.
Construction works have in fact ceased since
last August due to disagreements between the project’s investor, the Vietnam
National Shipping Lines (Vinalines), and the contractor, Korea-based SK
Engineering & Construction Corp.
Throwing
money away
Now that the project is completely stopped,
none of the involved parties know when it will be reactivated, while the total
investment is expected to rise by at least 50 percent.
This means more VND3 trillion ($146.3 million)
will be thrown into the project when it resumes, though this project has
already been wasting a hefty sum by remaining sluggish in the past two years.
Tran Huu Chieu, deputy CEO of Vinalines, told
Tuoi Tre that the Van Phong port would not follow the origin design as
consulted by Portcoast Consultant Co. to receive 6,000-9,000 TEU container
ships but would have a Vinalines subsidiary work out on a new design to
accommodate 12,000-15,000 TEU vessels.
But Portcoast’s spokesperson said although
their design was not used, Vinalines still had to clear the VND20-billion
consultant fees as contracted.
Moreover, more than VND200 billion have been
disbursed to build certain units of the project will also be wasted since they
will not be reused once construction works resume.
A source told Tuoi Tre that Vinalines chief
executives had also frittered away some VND325 billion by accepting the
exorbitant prices of raw materials as suggested in the contract.
And another massive sum of VND150 billion
Vinalines paid a Korea-based insurer to guarantee for the money payment in
advance to the contractor is also likely to be lost due to some unclear clauses
in the contract.
However, seaport experts said the largest
damage caused by this stalled project was the annual loss of $160 million since
the port failed to handle 0.71 million TEU a year as expected.
Getting
out of the mud
A contractor who used to participate in the
Van Phong project said the cause of the whole mess was Vinalines' poor finance.
He said since the capital needed for the
project had unexpectedly soared to VND9 trillion, Vinalines had to attract more
foreign investors to ease its burden and speed up construction.
Chieu said Vinalines had signed a memorandum
about the Van Phong port with Netherlands-based Rotterdam Port Co.
He said the Dutch company was planning to come
to Vietnam to discuss further about which part of the project it would join in.
“Vinalines wants to have Rotterdam open its
wallet,” he said.
TUOI TRE
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