Payments to Desert Highway Road contractors ‘to resume very soon’

AMMAN — The Secretary General of the Ministry of Public Works and Housing (MPWH) Ammar Gharaibeh said that due payments will be disbursed to the Desert Highway Road contractors “very soon”. 

Gharaibeh on Wednesday told the Jordan News Agency, Petra, that the ministry had started discussions with the Ministry of Finance (MoF) and the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MPIC) to provide financial coverage for the due payments.

He pointed out that work is ongoing in the three sites of the project, and that the $ 225 million project is being carried out through three tenders implemented by three contractors, two Jordanian and one Saudi. This comes in accordance with the requirements and conditions of the sponsor: the Saudi Fund for Development.

The government signed the Desert Highway Road tenders last July, according to which, the construction should be implemented over 20 months, in addition to detours ranging between five to six kilometres each.

“Although contractors implemented all required works as per the agreed timetable, the government turned a deaf ear to the association’s financial demands,” said President of Jordan’s Contractors Association Ahmad Yacoub.

The syndicate’s president claimed that the MPWH and the MoF have stopped delivering the due payments to contractors last February, which led contractors to slow work implementation in accordance with the “1987 FIDIC contract”. 

He added that the delay resulted in car accidents, of which there were several victims. The project provides jobs to 1,500 families in the southern governorates.