FRA contract with China Railway First Group terminated

The Fiji Roads Authority says that it’s contract with China Railway First Group to deliver the highway works from 9‑miles to Rewa Bridge on Kings Road has been terminated.

FRA says over recent months FRA has been working with China Railway First Group to try to get the project back on track but these efforts have not been successful and the project has fallen further behind programme.

Authority CEO Jonathan Moore says the section of Kings Road that was to be delivered by China Railway is entry to Fiji for many visitors and the continued and increasing delays to completion has been deemed unacceptable, resulting in the termination.

Moore says the decision to terminate any construction contract is not taken lightly and the management of the FRA has strictly followed the conditions of the contract in doing so.

He says over recent days the FRA has been in discussion with replacement contractors to deliver the remaining works and these arrangements are approaching completion.

Moore says FRA has also been made aware of concerns over the recent termination of workers by China Railway.

He says the 9‑Miles to Rewa Bridge project is the only project that has been terminated so if China Railway First Group is unable to reallocate staff then they will be taking action to terminate those that cannot be put onto other projects.

Moore says the FRA has no intention of losing experienced workers, particularly as they were not the root‑cause of the reason to terminate the contract, so in good faith FRA is in discussion with other contractors working on FRA projects with a view to absorbing as many workers as possible into running projects.