On November 26, the Ho Chi Minh City Urban Railway Management Board (MAUR) sent an urgent document to the Ho Chi Minh City People's Committee, presenting a draft report to the Prime Minister on the implementation status of Metro Line 1 project (Ben Thanh - Suoi Tien).
According to the draft report, Metro Line 1 project has completed 100% of the construction volume at the site. Important tasks such as fire prevention and fighting acceptance at CP1b package, trial operation, registration and inspection stamping for 17 trains have been completed.
Currently, MAUR is coordinating with relevant units to speed up the progress of remaining work, including:
- Completed fire prevention and fighting acceptance and issued environmental license on December 10.
- System safety assessment and certification on December 15.
- The entire project was accepted by the State Inspection Council on December 20.
- Metro Line 1 officially enters commercial operation from December 22, 2024.
This year, Metro Line 1 must disburse more than VND 4,467 billion, but by November 20, it had only disbursed more than VND 1,128 billion, reaching 25.26% of the plan. Currently, MAUR is focusing on coordinating with contractors to complete the disbursement by the end of 2024.
However, Metro Line 1 is facing difficulties due to internal disagreements among members of the CP1a contractor consortium (underground section from Ben Thanh station to City Theater station).
The SMC4 consortium (including Sumitomo Mitsui and CIENCO4 Group Corporation) has not yet reached an agreement on signing project documents. In particular, CIENCO4 has not signed important contract appendices, including adjusting contract implementation time, disbursement payment and providing VAT invoices.
MAUR has held many working sessions with the parties, listened to opinions from Sumitomo Mitsui and CIENCO4, and called on the two members of the consortium to coordinate in resolving the dispute in a spirit of cooperation, avoiding affecting the project's progress.
On October 24, MAUR sent a document requesting the consortium SMC4 and CIENCO4 Group Corporation to urgently complete the relevant documents and submit them to MAUR in October. However, to date, the issue has not been completely resolved.
In the draft report to the Prime Minister on the progress of Metro Line 1, Ho Chi Minh City proposed that the State Steering Committee for important national projects and works, key to the transport sector, and the Ministry of Transport direct CIENCO4 to urgently complete the above documents in November 2024 to ensure the project's completion progress.
In case of non-compliance, Ho Chi Minh City proposes to take measures to deal with other transportation projects that CIENCO4 is participating in, including measures to limit bidding for a limited period in Ho Chi Minh City.
