Negligence, besides extreme weather and rugged terrain, slowed construction of the farm road to Raminang village in Lunana gewog, Gasa, from Goen Tsephu in Punakha according to an internal audit report.
In the past year and a half only three kms of the farm road was built. Work began in December 2015, during the former Gup Gyem Tshering’s term and 1.5 kms had been cut by the time the new Gup, Kaka, took over after the 2016 local elections.
Former Gup Gyem Tshering said budget approval was delayed and when everything was set to start, weather and geographical terrain greatly hampered progress. The present gup Kaka said they worked for three months before work had to be halted because of weather.
But the internal audit report suggests that there was complete negligence from gewog officials in charge of the road construction. There were no timely supervision carried out, which created a environment for ill-practices ultimately escalating the cost according to the report.
The reports states that of 21 barrels of Bitumen 11 barrels are missing and there are also instances of fuel being misused by the machine operator as there were no books maintained to keep track of work done.
The persons in-charge of the road construction were also asked by gewog officials to minimize their site visits to reduce their DSA claims.
“The construction work has been very slow, although it has been picking up gradually under the present gup ,” Tandin Wangchuk, a resident of Lunana said.
Another resident, Jigme, said that in the absence of a proper road the villagers facing a lot of problems transporting their goods.
Nu 11.95 million was allocated for the construction of the 6 km road.