By Michael Bluhm
BEIRUT: The failure of contractors to meet deadlines has pushed back by months the return of Palestinians to their homes in the destroyed Nahr al-Bared refugee camp, a number of sources told The Daily Star Wednesday.
The first sector of the camp to be rebuilt, home to about 400 of the camp’s 5,449 families, should have been completed early in December, but the inability of Al-Jihad for Commerce and Contracting to carry out the reconstruction leaves it unclear when the displaced Palestinians will be able to return to the camp, said Charles Higgins, project director for Nahr al-Bared for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency, which is overseeing the rebuilding.
“If they were working properly, it would be one to two months – but they’re not working properly,” Higgins said. “There’s zero progress. This is not giving me a very restful sleep.”
Al-Jihad for Commerce and Contracting representatives did not respond to repeated requests for comment.
Slightly more than 100 families might be able to return to the camp at the end of this month, as UNRWA has begun to press Al-Jihad to finish off the part of the first sector nearest to being completed, Higgins added. “We’re now demanding a handover from them to us in the middle of this month,” he said.
However, it remains uncertain when the contractor will conclude the entire sector, despite the deadline to complete the reconstruction having passed almost three months ago, Higgins said.
“What I imagine and what Al-Jihad says are very different things,” he said. Major concrete work is not yet done, and Al-Jihad has not commenced almost any of the finishing work, which makes up more than half of the rebuilding project, Higgins added.
That leaves the remaining families, who had been promised that they would receive the keys to their rebuilt homes in December, with no idea when they will be able to move back into the camp, which was largely destroyed in the mid-2007 conflict between the Lebanese Army and Fatah al-Islam militants.
Living as evacuees for about three-and-a-half years without any credible date for a return to their homes, the Palestinians are finding it impossible to make any plans for their futures, said Rola Badran, programs director for the Palestinian Human Rights Organization. The displaced residents of the first sector were told that they would be able to take possession of their reconstructed dwellings in December, and then they were told it would be in January and then March, Badran added.
“They are not satisfied,” she said. “Of course they are disappointed. It’s very hard to continue living in a temporary situation.”
The remaining more than 5,000 families are feeling worse about their predicament, because the date of their eventual return to the rebuilt camp is slipping further and further into the future as the delays build for the earlier sectors, Badran said.
“They are losing hope,” she said.
Al-Jihad has applied for an extension of the contractual deadline for some months, but UNRWA rejected the request, and the two sides are still wrangling over the extension, Higgins said.
“We don’t agree,” Higgins said. “There may be justification for some small delays, but not to the extent that the contractor is [requesting].”
The engineering and consulting firm Rafik al-Khoury is acting as an arbiter in the dispute; owner Rafik al-Khoury said he could not comment on the proceedings, but he added that talks were ongoing and would take more time.
UNRWA is considering all of its options against Al-Jihad, such as contract penalties or the termination of the contract, Higgins said.
The U.N. agency has paid all of the invoices submitted by the contractor, but much more than 50 percent of the value of the contract has yet to be paid out, Higgins added. “More money remains to be paid than can actually be withdrawn in penalties,” he said.
A similar situation is unfolding in the second of eight sectors slated for completion, Higgins said. That area, home to about 600 families, should be rebuilt near the end of this year, according to the contract, but at the current rate of construction that deadline would also not be met, Higgins added.
“We see delays coming,” he said, adding that a different contractor was handling the construction in the second sector.
“They haven’t met their own schedule of work. We can see that they are off track. We’re also in discussion with them about their rate of progress. You may be assured that we have not wasted any moment in telling them this.”
Both contractors have said the delays stem in part from state officials not granting permits to the construction workers, but Higgins called the explanation an alibi. “I don’t believe this is a reason, but an excuse – they seize upon the same excuses,” he said.
Some delays in the reconstruction have occurred because teams scouring the camp for unexploded ordnance unearthed archaeological finds, which then had to be examined and preserved; those delays, however, do not explain the failure of the contractor to keep up with their own construction schedules, Higgins said.
The delay in the first sector, in the end, carries more significance because of the symbolic value of moving the first batch of evacuees back into the camp, Higgins said. UNRWA has adopted a fundraising approach that the agency will have an easier time securing more funds from donors once it can show them that the reconstruction is making progress and Palestinians are successfully returning to rebuilt homes, a number of UNRWA officials have previously said.
UNRWA has collected donations to cover about one-thirds of the $432-million reconstruction tab, but Palestinians remain skeptical that the project will ever be completed as the date of their return home continues receding into the future, Badran said. “They feel like lots of money has been spent, and nothing has been moving,” she said. “Now all that they are receiving are promises.”
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