The project has been keeping Holly and I very busy ever since we arrived in November. We finally feel that things are starting to come together so we can start construction in the upcoming weeks. The project was tendered last month and closed on the March 31st. The past two weeks we have been scrutinizing the bids and doing final interviews with the contractors. We now have a contractor selected and are working on finalizing our contract with them.
We have also been working on finalizing our agreement with the NGO Bureau of Bangladesh to be allowed to import money into the country for the project. This work has been seriously hampered over the past month due to ongoing country wide road strikes due to political tensions in country. Last week the roads were closed every business day. As we required the local District Commissioner's signature of approval on the project and required local legal teams advice we rented a motorboat and boated from the dock just in front of my house to Cox's Bazar (one and a half hour ride) on Thursday in order to get around the road strikes. We had a good meeting and ultimately he was able to provide his approval. Since this meeting he has been able to come to our facility yesterday to view the work here first hand.
(District Commissioner Signing off on the project)
(Holding and Reviewing the Signed document)
(Typical government office filing system)
(The Boat we used to get down to Cox's)
(Passing by the fishmarket and airport on other side of the road)
Prior to our final head office approval we still need our legal team to sign off on the contract so we have been engaging with our local legal advisors to provide the requested documents.
(Meeting with our national lawyer)
(We are always treated well when we visit Cox's Bazar- front middle - cow brain)
Site work has been ongoing over the past couple months. We have had a new security fence installed around the property boundaries, Cutting and removing trees, re-routing a current road around the site, installing temporary access roads, etc.
(Re-routing the back compound access road)
(New storm drainage)
(Soil testing - the testing company actually lost 40' of their steel pipes down the borehole so we called the backhoe in to dig it out. They were only at 50' so the backhoe was able to reach it.)
(One crew of concrete workers were finishing a new construction entrance well into the night)
A team of railroad personnel also made it to site this week again. This time the head of the railroad was with them and we were able to lobby for our desired track routing through the property. The Staff had been requesting this meeting for the past couple years. They had over 20 people in their group from engineering to political personnel to listen to our proposal.
(meeting with the railroad team)
(discussion with the Engineering Team)
A few new photos also loaded to our webalbums:
Jon
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