The news of the collapse of a Dammam bridge being built by a private company brought fresh concerns of a long struggle with bridge projects in the Kingdom. The first question to ask is: why did the bridge fall? It may take several days to determine exactly what happened and who is responsible. A project supervisor from the contracted company has already narrowed it down to a worker who allegedly failed to compile the concrete module. That seems like a pretty handy excuse. The Dammam bridge failure prompts questions regarding the responsibility of the Eastern Province Mayoralty in overseeing the project. News reports say that the contractor in charge of the bridge project was also given four other bridge projects at the same time, altogether worth one billion riyals. How can a small contractor work on five major projects simultaneously and not be expected to encounter problems? It seems that the business of sub-contracting work to other small, unqualified contractors has been thriving at the cost of safety. This scam marketing of nefarious companies owned by people who have had their hand out from the beginning of their lives needs to end. Apart from the safety issue, the time taken to complete bridge projects is outrageous. A new, 1-km bridge in Jeddah, which has just been completed, took almost four years to complete at a total cost of SR290m. Construction on Burj Dubai, the tallest building on earth, started in 2005 and will be completed next year. In the Kingdom, however, quality and efficiency of infrastructure projects have become major issues. Tight government supervision of bridge projects is probably the only way to save the nation's bridges. The mayoralties around the Kingdom tend to believe that their job ends once bidding has ended, leaving the fate of the projects to private companies, which are totally driven by profit rather than concern for the public. Construction of a bridge in Jeddah, which was near completion, was stopped because of major defects. The best Jeddah Mayoralty could do was to form a committee to investigate after the fact. The constant founding of committees is not the solution. All national infrastructure projects need to come under immediate and tight supervision by a responsible and accountable professional government body. Private companies that supervise their own work have no incentive for pride and excellence. Once they make their bucks, the government is left holding the bag. If a company goes bankrupt the very next morning, the government has virtually no recourse to demand accountability. And the people end up paying for it in the end. Apart from monitoring quality, time of completion, and cost, the body should also break up the monopoly of certain private companies involved in bridge projects and even promote international companies to take over these projects, leading to innovation and more choices for the public. Ill-qualified national companies, which mysteriously happen to handle big bridge projects, will only drive our economy and infrastructure into the ground. __
