BUJUMBURA May 18th (ABP) – The Director General of the Burundi Agency for Public Works Achievement (ABUTIP), Ms. Catherine Bucumi, told the check by ABP on Thursday that before the reception of the works, the maintenance and the sanitation of infrastructures built under the Emergency Infrastructure Resilience Project (PURI), as is the case for the drainage at the “Gasenyi River”, are provided by the awarded companies.
She said that the legal representative of the Environmental Protection Association (EPA), Mr. Jean-Claude Ntunzwenimana, had announced in the publication of the ABP-INFOS N°11186 of May 9, 2019, that his organization had just started the sanitation and protection works of those infrastructures. Currently, she said, there is no contract between ABUTIP and the EPA.
Nevertheless, the ABUTIP general director specified that in case of exceptional situation like heavy rain which washes away important deposits, the ABUTIP has set up mechanisms of maintenance of those infrastructures via a maintenance contract that it has concluded with the ETRAC construction company.
In order to promote local employment, she added, ABUTIP recommends that the construction companies that awarded contract use local workforce.
After receiving the infrastructures, Ms. Bucumi said, the maintenance of those infrastructures will be the responsibility of the communes located in the project area.
The infrastructures that were built under the PURI are evacuation gutters of the Gasenyi and Nyabagere rivers that were built in the Gasenyi, Gatunguru (Mutimbuzi commune), Carama (Kinama urban zone), Kamenge and Ngagara neighborhoods on a World Bank financing through ABUTIP.
