KUALA LUMPUR: A company with the registration number 779469-K has been subjected to Liquidated Ascertained Damages (LAD) totalling RM7.92 million for delays in the work related to the National Flood Forecast and Warning Programme (PRAB).
The Auditor General, in a report today, said the company took an additional 1,829 days to complete the construction of stations and installation of equipment at Kelantan and Terengganu riverbanks and an additional 1,836 days for the same work at Pahang riverbanks.
"The Project Agreement for the Construction of Telemetric Hydrological Stations, Sirens, and Communication Networks, as well as Related Works, states that the company is required to construct 154 new hydrological stations and upgrade 203 stations or supply telemetric hydrological equipment, including rainfall gauges, river water level gauges, discharge gauges, velocity gauges, soil moisture gauges, sirens, and/or web cameras according to specified locations.
"The construction of hydrological stations and related works should have been completed by Oct 18, 2017.
"The Audit Review found that the overall work was completed on Oct 21, 2022, for the Kelantan and Terengganu River Basins and on Oct 28, 2022, for the Pahang River Basin, based on the Certificate of Completion.
"It was observed that the duration for station preparation and equipment installation was 1,829 days for the Kelantan and Terengganu River Basins and 1,836 days for the Pahang River Basin from the originally scheduled completion date as per the contract," the report said.
Five Extension of Time (EOT) approvals were given for the Kelantan and Terengganu river basins, totaling 529 days until Oct 23, 2022 and nine EOTs were granted for 880 days until Oct 31, 2022 for the work in Pahang river banks.
The EOTs include exceptions given due to the Movement Control Order during the Covid-19 pandemic.
The Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID) in several responses to the AG said the extension of time was due to the contractor facing several issues, including equipment firmware problems, the Movement Control Order and the closure of 3G coverage by the Malaysian Communications and Multimedia Commission.
"Before the company could hand over all the constructed stations to the government, the company was subjected to LAD amounting to RM7.92 million for the delay.
"To minimise the ongoing imposition of LAD, the station handover was done in stages through the Certificate of Partial Occupation (CPO).
"The excessively prolonged construction period resulted in the contractor losing subcontractors and skilled workers," the department said.
The Auditor General Datuk Wan Suraya Wan Mohd Radzi earlier revealed that Phase 1 of PRAB for three river basins in Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang was unsatisfactory.
This, she said despite the government spending RM145 million for Phase 1 of the programme between 2015 and 2022, the flood forecasting accuracy rate is only 5.6 per cent.
61.4 per cent of the warnings at these stations came too late where the PRAB upgrade was supposed to ensure a two-day warning in advance.