Monday, November 25, 2019

Contractors stage protest in front of PM's official residence

Wearing black armbands, the contractors today staged a sit-in in front of the Prime Minister's official residence at Baluwatar against the state’s repressive policy towards them.
The Federation of Contractor's Association Nepal (FCAN) is agitating against some of the provisions of the recently-issued Public Procurement Regulations-2076.
The contractors have put forth their 25-point including extending contracts to development projects, according to FCAN chair Rabi Singh. “We are forced to launch an agitation after the government failed to honour the commitments made in the past,” he said, adding that PM KP Sharma Oli himself had vowed to fulfill our demands. “We will boycott the government bidding, if our demands are not met as per the previous understanding reached with the prime minister.”
He also warned the government of halting the construction of development projects, if their demands were not met.
Singh also blamed the government for being repressive towards contractors in recent months by putting all the blames on them for every delay in projects. “The tendency of directly blaming contractors for delay in a project regardless of any cause has increased in recent times,” he said, adding that the government policy is discouraging them instead of supporting contractors and the construction industry.
Before going to premier, the FCAN also claimed that they asked Ministry of Physical Infrastructure and Transport (MoPIT) and also at the Public Procurement Monitoring Office to solve their problem but they were reluctant to address the issues.

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