NOTHING SINISTER ABOUT BARRING OF FJT UNIVERSITY CONTRACTOR - SINKAMBA
THERE is nothing sinis ter about the World Bank barring China Energy Engineering Group Hunan, Electric Power Design Institute the contractor tasked to work on the con troversial Fredrick Jacob Titus (FJT) University in Luapula.
In 2019 the World Bank announced a 20-month de barment of China Energy Engineering Group, Hunan Electric Power Design Institute Co., a Chinese state-owned enterprise that provides engineering and construction services, in con nection with fraud as part of the Lusaka Transmission and Distribution Rehabilitation Project.
Mr Sinkamba however said that the FJT deal was signed in 2013 and there was no rela tion with the World Bank ver dict which happened in 2019.
He said the World Bank barring entities was a normal thing that people should not even frown on as it was common.
Mr Sinkamba said people should not connect the con struction of the FJT to the
construction of the transmis sion and distribution rehabili tation project.
“For me, I feel people should not connect the con troversy linked to the FJT and barring of China Energy because they are two different scenarios all together,” he said.
Meanwhile former National Democratic Congress (NDC) president Mwenya Musenge said that some people in gov ernment at the time were
compromised as they did not take time to scrutinize the contractor. He said that had the people in procurement done their homework they could not have settled for a contractor who had a ques tionable record.
“For me the buck falls on the people in procurement because they had to look at all the facets before coming up with the name of the contrac tor,” he said.