Bahrain Ministry of Works denies payment problems

The MoW in Manama said the payment was being processed and would be paid in due course

A senior official with Bahrain’s Ministry of Works has said a pay dispute on its US $114 million (BHD 43 million) Isa Town fly over and interchange project is between the contractor and its employees.

South Korean construction giant Sungwon has reportedly been unable to pay its 500 workers on the project for the last three months because the Ministry is yet to pay a $5.3 million debt, said a report in the Gulf Daily News this morning.

The workers reportedly went on strike on Sunday, but most have since returned to work after being assured that payments would soon be made. Sungwon’s administration manager told the paper that the Ministry had repeatedly promised payment, but this had not happened.

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The Ministry’s assistant undersecretary for roads, Essam Abdulla Khalaf, said the payment was being processed and Sungwon would be paid in due course.

“For any project the contractor submits his invoice, it goes to the engineer who takes time to verify it, then it comes to us and we certify it, then we send it to Ministry of Finance for payment,” he told Construction Week.

“This is the system for all of our projects and it can take time. The problem is between the contractor and his employees.”

Khalaf would not speculate on when Sungwon would be paid, but said their invoice was now with the Ministry of Finance, which usually makes payments every two weeks, he said.

He also denied that work on the project had been halted for two weeks or that there would be any significant delay to the July 2010 deadline for the project.

“We have regular progress meetings with the contractor and so far there is no indication that there are delays,” he said.

“We go to the site regularly and maybe things have slowed down, but work is still going on.”

Meanwhile a Sungwon representative from its Bahrain site office refused to comment any further on the issue due to the terms of its contract.

“What is in the paper is already there and very embarrassing, but we will not be commenting any further,” she said.

The Isa Town fly over and interchange project began construction in October 2007 and was the first major civil works contract for Sungwon in Bahrain.