MADINAH — A follow-up panel has revealed 13 projects worth a total of SR180 million to protect Madinah from the dangers of floods have been abandoned or delayed, Al-Madinah newspaper reported on Saturday. In addition, there was obvious delay in implementing 15 other projects that were supposed to be completed within a specific time, the panel said. The projects were part of a comprehensive strategy executed by Madinah Municipality to combat the problems of floods in various neighborhoods of Madinah as well as rural areas outside the city at a total cost of SR252 million. An investigation into the status of these projects revealed various problems that contributed to the delay, which included the inability of the contractors to implement the projects because of their limited resources. Other reasons sited for the delay were related to the issuance of permits of traffic detours necessary to implement projects in main streets in the city. In other cases, rising groundwater in project sites halted the work at vital stages. According to the panel, the municipality sufficed by sending warnings to the contractors who were unable to complete the projects and instructing them to abide by the timeline. The municipality also recommended that the projects be withdrawn and awarded to other contractors. The implementation of the main rainwater drainage system in Madinah, which began about five years ago, has been obstructed. Only about 60 percent of the SR45 million project has been completed even though it was supposed to be commissioned by the middle of 2013. The delay was attributed to the difficulty in carrying out excavation work due to rocky terrain and the failure by the contractor to obtain the required construction machinery on time. The panel said such problems reflected the weakness of initial viability studies for the projects. Meanwhile, the system for monitoring Madinah projects in the municipalities of Yanbu, Badr and Al-Ula also found delays of up to 90 percent in some locations. Elapsed time in implementing led to inflating project costs by up to 347 percent in some cases. The report said 11 projects were proceeding according to plan. The latest of these projects was awarded last year by the municipality of Yanbu Al-Nakhl at a cost of SR4.4 million.
