Waiting for the completion of legal procedures
To prevent flooding and treat environmental pollution due to the lack of a domestic wastewater treatment system, the Provincial People's Council approved an investment policy of 1,000 billion VND to build the Quang Ngai City Rainwater and Wastewater Treatment System Project (formerly known as the project) in the southern basin of the Tra Khuc River downstream (abbreviated as the project). The implementation period is from 2024-2027. However, it is expected that the project will not start construction until the end of the fourth quarter of 2025.
According to Mr. Nguyen Van Cuong - Deputy Director of the Quang Ngai Province Civil and Industrial Construction Investment Project Management Board (investor), currently, the project management board is organizing the preparation and approval of a contractor selection plan to organize bidding to select contractors to consult on construction design steps after basic design.
To implement the next steps, it is necessary to organize the preparation and promptly approve the contractor selection plan. However, according to the provisions of the Law on Bidding No. 22/2023/QH15, which amends and supplements a number of articles in Law No. 90/2025/QH15, some contents of the contractor selection plan have been changed compared to the previous regulations such as the time for organizing contractor selection because the Government has specified in detail the limit for applying bidding designations according to the Government's regulations, while the Government has not issued a Decree guiding the implementation of Law No. 90/2025/QH15, so there is not enough legal basis for implementation.
In addition, during the implementation process, many households in Nghia Dung commune (now An Phu commune) have not agreed with the location of the construction of a wastewater treatment plant on the southern bank of Tra Khuc river, causing the project's progress to be greatly affected. Although the investor and local authorities have organized many consultation meetings on planning, environment, site clearance, etc., they have not yet reached a high level of consensus among the people of villages 5 and 6.
Mr. Nguyen Van Cuong said that the project investor is organizing the preparation and approval of task outlines and estimates of construction consulting packages implemented after the basic design to serve as a basis for accelerating the implementation of contractor selection for the next steps as soon as the authority is granted to issue Decrees guiding the implementation of Law No. 90/2025/QH15 and Circulars guiding implementation according to regulations.
Speed up progress to create synchronization with the dam project
The investor is coordinating with agencies and localities to determine the scope and boundaries of land acquisition, inventory, compensation plans, site clearance, and mine clearance; at the same time, organize conferences to publicize information, resolve problems to create consensus among people and speed up project progress.
The project investor is continuing to review and proactively coordinate with competent authorities to ensure full preparation of construction licensing procedures, in time to implement synchronous construction according to the general progress of the project.
Notably, previously, sharing with reporters, Mr. Tran Hoang Tuan - former Permanent Vice Chairman of the People's Committee of Quang Ngai province said that the Tra Khuc River downstream dam project (total investment of 1,498 billion VND) will continue to be implemented, but it is necessary to create synchronization with other projects for the dam to be effective. In particular, the Quang Ngai City centralized wastewater collection and treatment system project is being focused on by the province.
According to the reporter's records, the Tra Khuc River downstream dam project is being accelerated, expected to be completed by the end of 2025. On the contrary, the project of the system to collect and treat rainwater and wastewater of Quang Ngai city in the southern basin of the Tra Khuc river downstream is still stuck in legal procedures and has not received consensus from the people. This means that even if the dam is completed on schedule, its function will be difficult to fully exploit.
