DILI, 14 march 2023 (TATOLI) – Parliamentary Committee G which deals with Education, Youth, Culture, and Citizenship affairs calls for the review of contracts of community educational infrastructure projects, as some projects fall behind the set schedule.
Committee G presents the recommendations to the National Parliament after its monitoring visits to three municipalities – Ermera, Covalima, and Ainaro.
According to the report, the implementation of some educational infrastructure projects in the three municipalities was so slow due to the rainy season, poor road conditions for transporting construction materials, administrative bureaucracies of the National Development Agency (NDA), irresponsibility of the community project coordinators, and so on.
“We recommend the government to review the contracts of the community projects of the educational infrastructure as due to rainy season some of the infrastructure projects in remote areas are behind schedule,” the President of Committee G, Antonio Verdial de Sousa said at House of Parliament, today.
According to the Committee’s monitoring report, a total of 19 Community Projects for Educational Infrastructure with a total budget of $1.8 million, have been implemented in Ermera. Of the 19 projects, nine reached 90% execution, while the remaining 10 projects reached 46%, and the execution of the Licapat elementary school reached only 26% due to poor road conditions for transporting construction materials.
“There are schools where construction is completely stopped due to the irresponsibility of the community project coordinators, such as Kathrai elementary school in Railaco administrative post,” Verdial said.
Apart from Ermera, there are 18 educational infrastructure projects with a total budget of US$1.6 million have been implemented in Covalima municipality. Sixteen of these projects are community projects, and two are classified as major projects. The percentage of construction is low, due to the difficulties encountered during construction.
“Regarding the community educational infrastructure projects, everything is going well, some schools have reached 95% completion, and others are in the final stages of the inauguration, such as the Akar-Laran preschool,” Verdial explained.
In addition, 16 Educational Infrastructure projects have also been implemented in Ainaro. Of these projects, one was under the Council for Administration of Infrastructure Funds (CAFI). Some of these projects have already reached 50% and 75% of execution, while others are waiting to be inaugurated, and some projects have only reached 25% of execution due to the bureaucracies imposed by the National Development Agency (NDA).
The Directors of Education of the three municipalities – Ermera, Covalima, and Ainaro – praised the MPs for their initiative and commitment to improving the conditions of schools in the country.
Journalist: Filomeno Martins
Editor: Nelia Borges
