Isimba contractor asks for more time

GULU. China International Water and Electric Corporation (CWE), the contractor undertaking the construction of Isimba hydropower project, has asked the government to grant it more time to complete the work.

Government of Uganda is contributing 15 per cent funding to the 183MW power plant in Kayunga District.
The rest of the money was secured through a loan from the Exim Bank of China to meet 85 per cent of the works at a cost of $568m.
According to the project supervisor, Uganda Electricity Generation Company Limited, a formal request has been received from the contractor and is being discussed by government.

UEGCL corporate affairs manager Simon Kasyate said CWE submitted a request for time extension.
“The EPC contractor CWE submitted a request for extension of time (EOT) to the minister of Energy and Mineral Development and this is being discussed between the employer and the EPC contractor,” Mr Kasyate said.
With a few days to the deadline, the outstanding volume of work shows that the project will not be completed any time soon, according to Mr Kasyate.
“Considering the volume of outstanding works on the critical project components of the right embankment dam and powerhouse electro-mechanical installations, the contractor is unlikely to meet the substantial project completion date of August 30, 2018,” he confirmed.

As per the design, construction, off shore manufacturing and delivery project progress stood at 87.12 per cent although progress time stood at 97.5 per cent (39 months spent out of 40 months completion duration) by the end of July 2018.
Daily Monitor has also learnt that the contractor is yet to begin the construction of surface monuments for dam monitoring, including the construction of the dam top road, which will only commence after approval of the access road designs by the roads authority.
Efforts to get a comment from CWE management were futile because their known numbers were unavailable by press time.
However, a human resource officer, who declined to be named in order to speak freely, said the company had requested for four months up to December when all the technical bits will be done.

Progress
Mr Kasyate said, “Unit 3 rotor assembly and lowering is complete bringing unit 3 turbine and generator installation progress to 80 per cent. Unit overall completion is currently at 90 per cent completion.”
According to him, the water cooling system installation progress is at 90 per cent for unit 1 and 2 with the installation of the lower spillway gates completed and wet tests of the radial gates and stop logs yet to be done.
Regarding the powerhouse, concrete works stand at approximately 99.9 per cent, gravity dams 1 and 2 while spillways 1 and 2, and tail-race apron are all complete.

Roof works, wall cladding of the power house, erection bay and the auxiliary powerhouse have all been completed including transformer and generator bays at the tail-race platform while concrete works at the mechanical workshops and pavement access road to power house are yet to be completed.
At the substations, the switch yard, erections of towers and gantries and electrical equipment installations have been completed.
Electrical testing on the switch yard equipment is ongoing.

Key issue

Isimba hydropower project was commissioned in 2013. Its construction commenced in April 2015 and it would last for 40 months. It has attained 87.12 per cent progress with two days to the deadline.

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