KATHMANDU, June 6: Civil contractors have announced that they will stop all kinds of contracting work from July 17 – the first day of the next fiscal year. 

Issuing a statement on Wednesday, the Federation of Contractors’ Association of Nepal (FCAN) said contractors will begin an indefinite strike of stopping all kinds of work in defiance of a number of amendments in the Public Procurement Rules made recently.

They have been protesting the amendment since the previous month.

The body for civil contractors decided to this after a national conference on Wednesday. 

The FCAN will hand over all licenses of civil contract firms to the government and display black flags at project sites, as per its protest program. 

The contractors have also started indefinite sit-in protest at the district administration offices in all 77 districts, offices of all provincial chief ministers, and the Public Procurement Monitoring Office, from Wednesday. 

They have already decided to boycott the tender calls of public offices. Speaking at the national conference on Wednesday, FCAN’s president Rabi Singh stated that the regressive provisions in the rules will damage the whole construction industry. “This is an authoritarian government, and we were left with no choice than to protest as the government did not listen to our plea,” Singh said. 

After the rule was endorsed, the FCAN had submitted a memo to Prime Minister Khadga Prasad Oli and Minister of Physical Infrastructure and Transport Raghubir Mahaseth. 

The provisions in the amended law that riled the contractors include: barring construction firms from participating in public bidding if any of its promoters is blacklisted, restricting firms owned by people charged of corruption to participate in public bidding, and reducing the calculation of annual turnover on count of work experience while bidding for any public work and supply.

Likewise, they are unhappy with the provision that any public contract can be extended by only 50 percent, at most, of the time period initially agreed.

The government has stated that these provisions are important to regulate the non performing contractors. But the contractors argue that limiting time extension to 50 percent has already made as many as 1800 development work contracts invalid. 

The contractors also staged a rally in Kathmandu on Wednesday. FCAN’s former president Jay Ram Lamichhane claimed that the government is trying to finish the whole construction industry, going against its policy of prioritizing infrastructure development. 

With the contractors resorting to protests during the peak days of construction, the already slow development works of the country are likely to be further delayed. 

 
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