TRIPOLI – The Housing and Infrastructure Board (HIB) has signed contracts with a number of foreign companies to immediately resume three projects in Tripoli worth an estimated LD 1.1 billion. The committee reviewing the contracts for HIB gave the green light last month to restart the work. According to HIB, the total value of housing construction throughout the country is LD 45 billion — a figure higher than estimated by others in the sector. Construction contracts in other towns and cities are being reviewed and officials say they hope to restart them early next year provided that negotiations between HIB and the companies originally awarded the contracts are successful. Ali Ferjani, head of the HIB's Tripoli office, told the Libya Herald that the unnamed foreign companies involved in the three projects had dropped demands for compensation for losses during the revolution prior to restarting the projects. “We have already signed the contracts with foreign companies to restart the projects immediately and we are very close to signing another four projects”, he said. “We hope it will be done before the end of this year, depending on the response from the companies, which so far has been very positive.” Ferjani said that funds were available and the invoices would be cleared in a normal way after the signing of the contracts. “According to the agreements, the companies will be paid 50 percent of the invoices for completed work in advance while the remaining 50 percent will be released after on-site confirmation that there is serious work going on and that the companies have restarted the work.” According to sources familiar with the internal discussions, HIB is planning on paying five percent of the invoice value to settle compensation claims but only if the claims are substantiated after evaluation and verification by the HIB. The three projects in Tripoli are located in Tajoura, Seraj and Hadba Al-Khadra. All three are for infrastructure; no house building has been restarted so far. Their recommencement is expected to contribute significantly to Libya moving towards normality with the jobs created providing work for revolutionaries who until now had the limited choice of either serving in the security forces or being unemployed. – Libya Herald
