Firms prepare to go to court, Rajuk blames them for little work

The Uttara apartment project of Rajdhani Unnayan Kartripakkha (Rajuk) is set to face further delay as the construction firms are preparing for legal battle against the cancellation of their contracts by Rajuk authorities, sources said.
After getting the cancellation notices, Ena-DongA and Ena-DDJ Construction firms, the joint venture of ENA Properties and DongA Construction Industrial of South Korea, have decided to legally contest the Rajuk move.
Owner of ENA Properties --- Engineer M Enamul Haque, a ruling Awami League lawmaker, told the FE that Rajuk has cancelled the contract without consulting them and the decision is one-sided.
"You (Rajuk) cannot cancel a contract without discussing it with the other side. As we are implementing the project with a foreign company, they (foreign company) have taken the decision to take legal step," he said.
In February, 2012, Rajuk and the Public Works Department (PWD) signed three deals with three consortiums for constructing 79 buildings, each having 16-storey, 64 apartments to complete the work in 30 months. But only three per cent progress in the work has so far been made, a Rajuk source said.
The Ena-DongA and Ena-DDJ consortium was supposed to complete 68 per cent work of 61 buildings. But records show they could not complete even 2 per cent of the job.
Another consortium comprising Hamid Real Estate, owned by AL lawmaker Nasrul Hamid Bipu, and Building for Future Ltd, that was given the job of constructing 16 similar buildings, has so far completed 16 per cent of the work.  Due to the snail's pace in the work, Rajuk repeatedly served notices on the firms to speed up the construction. However, the notices proved futile as the consortiums kept those aside showing various reasons. Finally, Rajuk started cancelling the contracts.
The contracts on construction of the 6,000 flats were divided into 40 lots, and the Rajuk authorities have already cancelled deals in lot numbers 7, 8, 9, 10, 14, 16, 17, 19, 20, 33, 34 and 35.
In its cancellation notices, the Rajuk authorities said they have taken the decision to cancel the contracts as the construction firms did not execute their required jobs even after repeated 'warnings'.
"Finally, on January 31 this year, Engineer Enamul Haque assured the Rajuk officials at a meeting in presence of the Housing and Public Works Minister of speeding up the project. However, the authorities did not see any improvement during their later visit," the cancellation notice on Lot No 16 said.
While talking with the FE, Housing and Public Works Minister Engineer Mosharraf Hossain repeated the words about further delay in the project's completion.  
"As the construction firms are taking legal steps in the face of contract cancellation by Rajuk, we are thinking of alternative ways to accommodate the clients," he said.
The minister said they would provide the clients with the same types of apartment in the project's nearby places since the construction work was still at the preliminary stage.
About the future of the project, the minister said: "We are planning to float new tender, and will start the work soon." "And, the legal issues will be faced," he added.
A Rajuk official said the construction firms' legal move would not be effective because-firstly, they have violated the contracts' conditions even after repeated warnings.
"Their allegations will be overturned if we submit the contract letter to the court," he said.
The Rajuk-funded Tk 90 billion Uttara apartment project was initiated to help address the acute housing problem in the capital city, by providing apartments to the people at costs lower than the prevailing market rates.
The authorities concerned embarked on a plan to build 20 thousand apartments in three blocks (A, B, C) by constructing 223 sixteen-storeyed buildings, with eight units on each floor.