News
Met Dept. in a storm: More than US$ 2m down the drain
The Met Department has failed for the past thirteen years to install a Doppler radar system in Sri Lanka and more than two million dollars from a World Meteorological Organisation-administered trust fund was squandered on one unsuccessful project which started as early as 2007.
The costs incurred have been “a complete loss by now”, the Auditor General has held in a new performance audit of the Met Department. Sri Lanka still has no Doppler radar system to facilitate early warnings. But the trust fund agreement was signed with the WMO in May 2007 for its installation.
A second project funded by the Japanese International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for two Doppler radars in Puttalam and Pottuvil has only been inching forward since June 2017. The extent of land needed for the initiative has not been properly identified and there are still no survey plans. Various approvals are pending. And land acquisition is “very slow”, the Auditor General says.
The Doppler weather radar is an essential precipitation (drizzle, rain, hail, etc) observing system for large scale areas, according to the WMO, and an important tool in severe weather warnings and disaster management, among other things.
Under the first project, the WMO awarded the procurement contract for the radar to a US company. The building of a 20m tower to house the radar started at Gonapola in the Kalutara district in 2011. But construction was delayed by a rock layer which had gone undetected as requisite soil tests had not been done.
The access road was in “bad condition” even in March last year. Both tower and road were built by the Central Engineering Consultancy Bureau (CECB) which the Met Department handpicked in 2010 contrary to tender guidelines. The Auditor General slams the CECB’s work saying the building and installation of equipment such as generator and air conditioner were “not in proper quality”.
The Auditor General also questions the selection of the site. It says the WMO’s advisers and representatives, despite charging high fees, had failed “to provide adequate consultancies”.
Worse problems then emerged with the Doppler radar equipment which was procured by the WMO with little Met Department involvement. The contract valued at US$ 1.68mn went to the American Institute of Enterprise Electronics Corporation. But it was found that some parts were damaged, forcing them to be shipped back to the manufacturing plant.
The Auditor General indicates that the poor quality of the building at Gonapala contributed towards this outcome. The Met Department assured the radar supplier that the worksite was suitable for installation but it was not. For instance, the equipment room was waterproof rather than sealed.
The radar repair costs were to be borne by the trust fund but it was later determined that the price was too high. The period within which the repairs were to take place also lapsed. The contract order placed in December 2016 by the supplier was US$ 361,629 but, by March 2018, it rose above a million dollars owing to the condition of the equipment parts.
The Auditor General says there had been a delay of more than three-and-half years to send the parts back to the supplier for repairs. The air-conditioners were not on, rainwater had leaked into the installation where the equipment was stored and there was moisture on the walls. Worse, components worth over Rs 8mn were stolen by January 2016.
The Met Department did not receive any compensation for these losses, despite coverage to the value of US$ 1.3mn from Sri Lanka Insurance Corporation Ltd.
At the time of inspection in March last year, the Gonapala site was in shambles. A section of the access road was “in very poor condition” with sections that were dangerous to travel on. The fence was cut, allowing easy access. The building doors were open and the generator was decayed to the point of disuse. Fixtures were stolen. There were rainwater leaks and the iron staircase was rusted. The equipment room was wet and the doors and windows dilapidated. There was no water or electricity.