Monday, 11 March 2013

World Bank Tendering and Contract Administration Procedure


Contract administration is very complex which sometimes lead to cost overrun and delay of the construction project. It is extremely difficult to verify the authenticity of the contract and it requires skillful human resource to control and evaluate the process to ensure the transparency especially in the procurement. Documentation in the bidding stage must be written accurately so that contractors can fully understand the owner’s preferences. All pertinent documents must be monitored, diligently recorded and filed before, during and after construction for auditing.  If these processes are not done well, the project will be delayed, suspended or even terminated.

Mr. Ngo Viet Hoang made a case study on Trung Son Hydropower Project aimed to: (i) study the World Bank contract requirements and procedures; (ii) analyze strengths and weaknesses of 2 packages of entire project; (iii) study the practice of owner contract administration in Trung Son hydropower project; and (iv) discuss the lessons learned from the strengths and provide recommendations to improve the weaknesses.

Conclusion

The contract administration is perceived to start from simple to the complex. Its processes are of importance and how problems had been happened in case. The World Bank contract requirements and procedures recognize the basic similar theory, but World Bank focus on fair, transparent, anti-fraud and incorrupt bidders.

Furthermore, analyzing the strengths and weaknesses of the 2 packages of the entire project, it was found out that the difficult thing is in contract administration. The manager or the project team has no capability and experience as well as ethics to handle the project very well. The Trung Son Company is using the guidelines of the World Bank and coordinates it with some tools that are created by the company to improve the contract administration process. Summarizing these, it is recommended to verifying the step to make the framework perfectly suited for the other future project in Vietnam.


Based on the case study, it is revealed that the World Bank funded projects are being performed with commitments financially, environmental development sustainability, and socially by making the pre-feasibility study using a lot of program such as Environmental Impact Assessment and Supplemental (SESIA), Resettlement, Livelihoods and Ethnic Minorities Development Program (RLDP), Policy Framework for Compensation, Ethnic Minorities' Planning Framework and Environment Guidance under the Transmission Line Component, Trung Son Hydropower Project, Final Resettlement Action Plan (RAP) for Bridges and Access Road under Trung Son Access Road work item.

Furthermore, the borrowers also commit to have a skillful, ethnic and experience human resource. In addition, the borrowers must follow the World Bank’s guideline in procurement tightly. Another important thing behind a successful project is the finance.  In construction, the contractors cannot finish the workload on time if they do not receive the payment based on schedule. However, not all guidelines are suited for some areas especially in Vietnam where contract administration is unprofessional. There are still problems in corruption and fraud leading to wrong bidding result and choosing contractors. The author opined that the World Bank should allow the borrower to propose the adjustment suitable for their countries in terms of policies, economy, and social but still keeping the core things of World Bank guidelines.

His thesis abstract is copied and pasted below.

Abstract

The economic growth over several years is at the root of many of the issues in Vietnam’s energy sector. It lead to the government must have a plan to develop the power generation .
Vietnam’s options for power generation include a hydropower, sizable resources of coal and gas, renewable energy potential of possibly as well as some nuclear power.

From an emissions standpoint, every source that displaces coal from the generation mix would reduce emissions of both local pollutants including sulfur dioxide, oxides of nitrogen and particulates and global pollutants, especially carbon dioxide (CO2). And Development of hydropower could have a decisive impact on Vietnam’s future emissions path, since it will avoid building new coal fired plant.  Hydropower represents one of the lowest cost sources of new power supply and Vietnam is constructing the Son La (2,400MW) and developing the Lai Chau (1,200MW) large plants on the Da River, adding to the current facility at Hoa Binh (1,920MW).  Besides these large projects, the main focus is on medium-sized projects (typically 100-600 MW each) distributed throughout the country. About 22 such projects are under construction or are planned to enter construction over the next decade, providing a total of about 4,800 MW.

 Trung Son hydropower project is the first hydropower project that’s funded by World Bank, and its processes must follow the World Bank guideline. It’s the challenge for entire member of Trung Son hydropower company. Especially, in contract administration. How to avoid the threat of delay(time), over budget(cost), uncetain risk of construction(quality) is the big question. 

Through this final report,the author hope everyone, who read it, can find out their own way to solve the edges related to contract administration problems in the difference projects.


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