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National Government Constituency Development Fund (NGCDF) Board has terminated the contracts of several contractors behind stalled projects across the country that are worth billions of shillings.

The most hit infrastructural projects in public primary and secondary schools include tuition blocks of classrooms, dormitories, dining halls, toilets and administration blocks.

However, the board’s Chief Executive Officer Yusuf Mbuno has assured the affected institutions that are spread across the 290 constituencies that there is hope of reviving the stalled projects for the benefit of the learners, teaching and none teaching staff.

“The board will conduct a fresh tendering process for all the stalled projects to ensure they are completed as scheduled to save the learners from the agony of studying under trees or congested classrooms,” said Mbuno. He said that some of the contractors blamed for the stalling or delay in implementation of infrastructural projects cited Covid-19 as the reason behind the action.

Immediate termination

According to Mbuno, some of the contractors who won the tenders and mostly youths, had hardly achieved 3 percent of what they had promised forcing the board to recommend immediate termination of projects.

Mbuno stated that the majority of the contractors had demonstrated that they lacked capacity to successfully implement the infrastructural projects giving his board no option but to terminate the contracts to protect taxpayers money.

“Despite giving the contractors several chances to improve on their performance, they still could not seize the opportunity and complete the work to date,” he said.

Mbuno revealed that a team from the board’s evaluation and monitoring section could not even trace the contractors on the site and that their efforts to reach them on phone to explain what challenges they were facing were futile.

While on a tour of the North Rift region to assess school projects funded through the national kitty Mbuno said they were forced to kickout the contractors over dismal performance.

The CEO who toured Lower Kipkaren Primary School in Turbo sub County of Uasin Gishu County was shocked to learn that the management of the secondary school section had converted a dormitory into a classroom for Form Four students.

This was after a contractor who was awarded the tender to put up tuition blocks of three classrooms abandoned the site three years ago and efforts to reach him to come and complete work has become futile.

 Area MP Janet Sitienei said the contractor only dug the foundation of the tuition block of class-rooms and left the site never to step at the school again. She wondered how the contractor could disappear from the site without permission from the public works officer terming his action as violation of the contract.