8th Ring Road project in Kuwait likely to be cancelled
Kuwait – Sources informed AlـWatan that tensions are mounting in the Ministry of Public Works due to the high possibility that the 8th Ring Road project might face cancellation, as the Ministry of Oil refuses to cooperate in eliminating oil obstacles from the route of the road. An official source at the ministry announced that Kuwait is in a noـwin situation whether the project is completed or cancelled.
If it is cancelled, Kuwait will lose the cost of the designing agreement that the ministry had signed in 2008, which came up to an expense of a million Kuwaiti dinars. He added that there is an 18 week delay, which will prompt the Ministry to pay compensations for the delay, in addition to the money paid to the international counseling firm. He explained that the total cost of the project is expected to reach 60 million Kuwaiti dinars; however, if the project proceeds and is completed, public funds will be wasted due to the increase in expenses to eliminate the oil obstacles, where the Ministry will continue paying the counseling firm because of the Ministry”s delay, which will also highly increase the final cost of the project.
Moreover, he stated that the Ministry should not have signed a contract with the counseling firm, until it was confirmed that they could proceed with the removal of the obstacles from the road”s route, according to the Minister”s instructions. A source mentioned that the construction of the road aimed to facilitate land trading activities among the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries, maintaining the roads” network, and increasing the traffic capacity in the area, since the movement of trucks among the GCC countries will be limited to the 8th Ring Road only, where the Fahaheel Road will be linked at Shuaiba Port by a regional road, of about 60 kms, and that has no traffic lights and contains three lanes in each direction.
MP Khaled AlـAdwa commented about the project by asserting the importance of continuing the execution of the road, and not only warned the ministry against cancelling it, but demanded that it should be penalized for the delay and the waste of public funds.
He said that the project must be executed despite the losses, because it will solve the disastrous traffic problems in Ahmadi, Mubarak AlـKabeer, and other areas.
Al Watan
