‘Work on CASA-1000 stopped for last 10 months’

KUNDUZ CITY (Pajhwok): Work on the Central Asia South Asia 1000 Megawatt (CASA-1000) electricity project has been stopped since the new government’s coming into power last year, an official said on Wednesday.

Da Afghanistan Breshna Shirkat Director Abdul Hakim Amin said work on CASA-1000 has been completed till Baghlan province, which accounted for 80 percent of the total work in Afghanistan.

“After the fall of the previous government, work on CASA-1000 was stopped, the donor of the project is the World Bank thus the global lender stopped paying contractors therefore the work has been stopped.”

Amin assured security of areas where the project was implemented and asked the executive officials to resume work on the project.

Eng. Shamsuddin, one of the contractors of CASA-1000, said: “After the fall of the previous government on August 15 last year, we received an email from the World Bank and were told to stop the project from August 15 onwards, due to the issue of non-recognition and some other chats. With the halt of this project, four to five hundred people lost their jobs.”

Eng. Abdul Latif, another contractor of the project, said: “We are facing problems; Our money is frozen, to whom we shall tell our problem; Neither the World Bank is here nor the company; We referred to the Islamic Emirate and they said they cannot do anything.”

He said: “We ask the World Bank that this project is an international project and not associate it with the Islamic Emirate. We also ask the Islamic Emirate to pay attention to the problem.”