The Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee has just issued a document agreeing with the proposal of the Inter-sectoral Working Group on the policy of exercising the right to unilaterally terminate the BOT (build-operate-transfer) contract for the construction project of the section connecting Vo Van Kiet Street to the Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway.

This project was previously implemented by Yen Khanh Group Joint Stock Company (investor) and the project enterprise is BOT Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong One Member Co., Ltd., with a total investment of more than 1,500 billion VND (excluding site clearance costs), implementation period from 2015-2017.

The project started construction in October 2015, but by mid-2018, the investor had stopped construction, with total construction output reaching only 140 billion VND, equivalent to 12% of the value.

To date, this project has been 'covered' for 7 years. The construction only has concrete piers lying around, yellowed, and covered with rusty iron.

2 7 km of expressway, completed in 5 years, only 3 bridges 1.jpg
The BOT project connecting Vo Van Kiet Street to Ho Chi Minh City - Trung Luong Expressway has been stalled for 7 years now. Photo: TK

Currently, the leaders of the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee have assigned the Traffic Construction Investment Project Management Board (Traffic Board, the agency performing state supervision) to urgently coordinate with investors, project enterprises and related units to review contracts, study legal regulations and actual project implementation situation; advise and propose payment of related costs, ensuring reasonableness and legality when exercising the right to unilaterally terminate the contract.

The Department of Planning and Investment urgently presides over and coordinates with relevant departments and branches to advise, propose and draft an official dispatch of the City People's Committee to send to the Ministry of Planning and Investment for guidance on procedures for unilaterally terminating the signed BOT contract before its expiration date.

Meanwhile, the City Inspectorate is assigned to preside over and coordinate with relevant units to review, consider, and give opinions on the contract termination status report, ensuring strictness and limiting shortcomings in procedures and responsibilities (if any).

"Based on the results of the implementation of the above contents, the Interdisciplinary Working Group advises and proposes to the City People's Committee to unilaterally terminate the signed BOT project contract, to be completed in July 2024", the content of the City People's Committee leader clearly stated.

According to this group's report, previously, the Ho Chi Minh City Department of Transport had presided over and coordinated with relevant departments to proactively work with investors and project enterprises to guide the implementation of remedying violations in accordance with the agreement in the signed BOT contract.

The Traffic Department has also worked many times and issued many documents requesting reports on the implementation status, legal status, and documents for the completed volumes. However, investors and project enterprises have repeatedly requested extensions and time extensions with the same main reasons being that documents were lost, and contractors did not provide sufficient information to prepare settlement records according to regulations.

The working group also assessed that the investor and project enterprise had committed serious violations such as: stopping project implementation since June 2018; unable to provide documents to clarify and prove the ability to arrange capital to continue implementing the signed BOT contract and contract performance guarantee, documents related to payment and other related contents.