By JOHN KOMBE
ZAMBEZI Drilling Limited, the company that worked on the Chongwe water improvement project, has expressed disappointment at the delayed payment by Government despite the project being completed and commissioned.
Company Engineer, Ramaprassad Ilindra, pointed out that they had successfully completed the project, but were disappointed that Government had gone mute over the pending payments.
He said that the project which started in 2017 had dragged on due to delayed payments by the government.
Mr Ilindra said that the payments had never been as per agreement and as such the company even claimed interest for the delayed dues.
He said even the interest had not been fully paid as the contract sum.
Mr Ilindra explained that Government had a balance of K1.8 million of the K17.2 million project sum and K2.4 million interest for delayed payments. He said that the company was owed K4.2m in outstanding payments.
The payments, he said, were not part of the one-year retention sum which was 10 percent of the contract sum.
He however said that the company was committed to fulfilling its obligations, but bemoaned the delayed payments. He said the company was even unable to attend to a minor leakage on the pipeline due to lack of funds and that some Government officials were not even picking his calls thereby making the work very difficult.
Meanwhile, Lusaka Water Supply and Sanitation Company projects manager Wycliffe Kunda earlier assured the contractor that the outstanding payments would be cleared soon.
