(Engineering daily) Nguyen Anh Duong = Many ODA projects required millions of dollars in additional capital, were bound by disadvantageous provisions, made excessive payments to foreign contractors.
A State Auditor report on 2018 submitted to the National Assembly says that 27 of 42 transportation projects that use ODA(Official development assistance) have adjusted their registered capital upwards by a total of $5.24 billion.
For example, the project to upgrade the Hanoi-Ho Chi Minh railway line has adjusted its investment capital three times, an increase of $292 million, or an increase of 276% over the capital initially approved for the project.
The Huoi Quang hydropower project, the largest hydropower station in northwest Vietnam, adjusted its capital twice by nearly $247 million.
The State Audit report also says that many projects have entered into ODA contracts with onerous provisions that require the appointment of foreign contractors for excessively high remuneration.
The project also accepted requests for additional capital, have not considered challenging proposals with unusually high costs, or agreed to consultancy costs that exceed price ceilings suggested by the ODA lender, the State Audit report found.
In addition, some projects have hired foreign consultants that charge many times more than Vietnamese consultants.
More than 91 percent of ODA and preferential loans in the past two years have come from development agencies, 35% from WB(the World Bank), 33% from JICA(the Japan International Cooperation Agency) and 14.1% from ADB(the Asian Development Bank).
