VietNamNet Bridge – HCMC is calling for private firms to implement flood control projects in public-private partnership (PPP) or build-transfer format as chronic flooding is taking its toll on the city. Several firms have shown interest in the flood control projects.

Trung Nam Construction Investment Corp. has recently proposed executing a flood control project at a cost of nearly VND9.93 trillion (US$441 million).

The city government has given the go-ahead to Trung Nam to further study the feasibility of the project that would benefit districts 1, 4, 7, 8, Binh Chanh and Nha Be. The project would build six big sluices, an eight-kilometer embankment along the Saigon River and 25 drainage systems.

The city government expects the project will help reduce direct and indirect damages caused by flooding, and control rising flood tides in low-lying areas covering 570 square kilometers and having 6.5 million residents on the right bank of the Saigon River and the downtown.

Nonetheless, a recent report of the HCMC Department of Planning and Investment said a hindrance to the project is limited land used as a form of payment for the investor. If the project is implemented in the BT format, the investor would be allocated land worth around 15% of the project’s total cost.

The city plans to use three pieces of land -- 5,500 square meters in the city’s southern urban area in District 7, 4.2 hectares in District 9 and nearly 31,500 square meters also in District 9 -- to pay for the project.

The planning department is considering three more lots in the city for the investor.

However, preliminary estimates showed the combined value of those six lots is still lower than 15% of the total cost of the project, the department’s director Su Ngoc Anh said in a report sent to the HCMC government earlier this month.

As a result, the department has asked the Department of Natural Resources and Environment, the land development fund authority and relevant agencies to recommend other land lots which could be used to pay for the investor.

The Prime Minister has agreed on HCMC’s plan to exchange land for the execution of BT flood control projects.

The city will need over VND156 trillion for flood control works in the next five years, heard a meeting of the HCMC People’s Council last week. This underscores the urgency to implement such projects to minimize the ill-effects of climate change.

PPP and BT are among the solutions for the city to woo private investors to big-ticket anti-flood projects due to its financial constraints. But experts said it would be stressful to find land for investors as the city would also have to construct sluices and other works like wastewater treatment and reservoirs through the land-for-infrastructure model.

SGT