DILI, march 21, 2023 ( TATOLI) -The eight Constitutional Governments through the Council Administration of Infrastructure Fund (CAFI) today held a national seminar entitled: “Reflection on 20 Years Infrastructure of Quality, Resilient and Sustainability of Development in Timor – Leste”.
The Vice Prime Minister and Minister of Territorial and Urbanization, José Reis, said that this National seminar was organized by CAFI, for 3 days, aiming of reflecting on 20 years of infrastructure development and evaluating the quality of resilient infrastructure and sustainability.
“We are organizing this national seminar to gather all the ideas from infrastructure experts from Timor-Leste and Japan to formulate a feasibility study which oriented on development system to ensure the quality, resilient and sustainability of infrastructure,” Vice Prime Minister José Reis, told reporters at the Ministry of Finance Aitarak – Laran on tuesday.
Reis explained that Timor – Leste has been building infrastructure for 20 years but the quality of the infrastructure is very fragile due to the lack of an integrated feasibility study.
While Government placed $5 billion for the Infrastructure development, of the total amount the government has spent over $ 3 billion on 70% of infrastructure projects in the last 20 decades and the quality of the infrastructure are remain a concern.
“We have run out of 1,962 projects in the national territory and spent over $3 billion for over 71% of the project in the last 20 decades but the quality of the physical infrastructure of some building have been damaged due to lack of an integrated feasibility study system,” Vice Prime Minister José Reis told reporters at the Ministry of Finance Aitarak- Laran, Dili on tuesday.
Reis emphasized that, from this experience, the Government through the Council of Administration of Infrastructure Fund (CAFI) today held a national seminar starting from the 21st – 23rd to evaluate the infrastructure achievements that have been achieved so far and formulate the laws toward feasibility studies, centralization, monitoring systems, and others related to integrated infrastructure systems to ensure the quality of infrastructure which resilient and sustainable in the future.
“We will create the guidelines to recommend to the ninth Constitutional Government to ensure the quality, resilient, and sustainability of infrastructure in the future,” he concluded.
In addition, Reis said, six important points were highlighted for the development of infrastructure in Timor-Leste including:
1) Articulation between regional and socio-economic planning and infrastructure planning and management;
2) Organising institutions that have competence in the management, implementation, and supervision of infrastructure projects, with a view to better management of existing resources, avoiding duplication of competence and attribution and/or investment (financial);
3) Need to develop human resources with the technical capacity to monitor the projects;
4) Need for the development of sufficiently prepared human resources for the careful management of infrastructure projects, financed by the State Annual Budget or loans (the situation of managing loans-financed infrastructure projects is even more critical, as poor execution is often a source of non-compliance with contractual obligation resulting in additional costs for the State)
5) The creation of a national civil engineering laboratory that allows the setting and imposition of certain quality standards, with the main objective of increasing the quality of infrastructure which is intended to be more resilient.
6) To identify the necessary legislative interventions to enhance the development of the infrastructure sector.
Journalist: Camilio de Sousa
Editor: Nelia B.
