Bureaucracy delays Erbil Martyrs Monument for a decade
Although it was completed 10 years ago and before it opens, the KRG will renovate the Erbil Martyrs Monument.
Part of it has collapsed.
"We will once again repair it," Hoshyar Qadir, the head of the Follow-Up Department in the KRG Council of Ministers, told Rudaw.
An estimated $18 million had been earmarked for the project.
Qadir explained, they have set up a nine-member engineering committee for renovations and it will cost an additional $3 million.
However, the project’s contractor blames the KRG for neglect.
"I finished the project on September 8, 2010 and handed to the government like a bouquet of flowers,” said Khasraw Jaff, who was the contractor of the monument.
"Due to neglecting the project, part of it has collapsed."
But Shukrulla Awdal Babkaiy, the head of the Erbil Martyrs Monument is blaming the contractor and the engineering staff for having "serious problems" with the building’s architecture.
"It even has problem in terms of mechanics. Tiles have been used for the rooftop of the monument and all of them must be removed. The contractor was negligent. He did not only have to think about his pocket. He has used materials that are vulnerable in other seasons," Babkaiy claimed.
Jaff, the contractor, dismissed Babkaiy's claims saying "the best quality materials were used for the building and this pretext is nonsense."
He reiterated no party is to blame but the government as "it neglected the project for 10 years."
The groundbreaking for the project was in early 2005.
Qadir, the head of the Follow-Up Department of the Council of Ministers also hinted that for renovating the project, they will give the tender to a Turkish company because "the domestic companies' products are not good."
He explained the project was handed over to the KRG Ministry of Martyrs and Anfal Affairs in March 2011, but they never opened it.
