Minister Dorji Choden said her ministry will review the recommendations made by the Anti-Corruption Commission (ACC) in its report on a study that found corruption to be rampant in road projects.
Speaking at Meet the Press Session today, Lyonpo said, the works and human settlement ministry, in fact, has made several reforms to reduce risks of corruption in the road construction sector. The major reforms include increasing the Defect Liability Period from one year to three years.
Defect Liability Period refers to a set period of time, after a construction project has been completed, during which the contractor will be recalled to rectify defects that appear.
“It is also reflected in the Economic Development Policy that every work should have a longer Defect Liability Period,” said Minister Dorji Choden. “As of now, it is just one year and then the contractors wash their hands off, and whatever construction works they carried out is handed over and they have no liability.”
Besides extending the Defect Liability Period, contractors will also be asked to obtain audit clearance prior to seeking a new contract.
The ACC’s recent research report on public road construction highlighted that corruption in the road sector could be the reason for the country’s poor quality roads.
Meanwhile, on the ACC’s recommendation on reviewing the national wage rate, the minister said there are a lot of other aspects to be looked into. “If we can increase that, it will be helpful, but it has lot of other implications,” the minister explained.
“Minimum wage rate is not applicable just for the construction sector. We have lots of other works in the country. Increasing the minimum wage rate will have a wide range of implications that need to be reviewed in totality.”
