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A never-ending highway upgrade in the Mekong Delta has turned into a deathtrap.

National Highway 80, which has been under construction for the past five years through Vinh Long and Dong Thap provinces, has caused fatal accidents, sent shops out of business and left locals at their wits end.

Many local restaurants are on the brink of bankruptcy because the dust and sand from the road has scared away their customers and the terrible state of the highway creates regular traffic jams.

Work on the highway, which also links Kien Giang and An Giang provinces to Ho Chi Minh City, began in 2003.

But many contractors on the project have missed a series of deadlines, further frustrating local authorities and residents.

All shook up

Parking his coach at a rest-stop, driver Nguyen Khac Tai from An Giang Province said his passengers had complained about the road.

“They criticized my careless driving for shaking them up during the trip,” Tai said. “But they should know there’s so many potholes, any effort to drive carefully would be in vain.”

“If there was a vote for the worst highway in Vietnam, National Highway 80 would win,” he said.

Elderly passenger Nguyen Van Duong, who was on the way to An Giang Province, said: “Even the young people cannot stand [being shaken up so much], so how can I tolerate it?”

But the An Giang-HCMC route is not the only section of the highway dangerously rutted.

Traveling through Dong Thap Province, Thanh Nien heard a series of complaints from coach passengers who said they were too scared to travel along the highway again.

Schools and businesses hurt Nguyen Hoang Tho, principal of the Chau Thanh 2 high school in Dong Thap’s Chau Thanh District, said the roadwork had damaged the school’s drainage system and the school now flooded after heavy rains.

When the weather is sunny, the school students suffer from the thick clouds of dust from the highway.

A school teacher died last month as she tried to avoid a pothole on a section of the highway, Tho said.

Nguyen Phuoc Hiep, another Chau Thanh District local, said road accidents had become common on the highway, which was slippery after rain.

Nguyen Thi Thu, a restaurant owner in Dong Thap’s Lai Vung District said she was considering shutting her restaurant because of a lack of customers since the roadwork began.

“How can people eat when the bowls, chopsticks, tables and chairs are coated with dust,” Thu said.

She told Thanh Nien many other restaurants along the highway had already closed because of the dust.

Tardy contractors

The highway upgrade project was approved by the Transport Ministry in 2001 and was divided into 12 tendering packages.

The ministry’s Project Management Unit 7 (PMU7) is the main investor of the project.

Many tendering packages started in 2003 and 2004 and were slated for completion two years ago.

But so far the contractors have missed all their deadlines.

Minister of Transport Ho Nghia Dung recently attributed the delay to slow site clearance, the soaring prices of construction materials in the first half of this year and repeated flooding.

But an official from the Dong Thap’s Transport Department disagreed. He said that even when the Dong Thap government had completed taking over the land and had handed it to the contractors, progress on the project had made little headway.

The official also said contractors should not blame flooding for their slow progress because it should have been factored into their plans.

A Thanh Nien investigation found no work underway at many construction sites along the highway.

Many sections were deserted, with construction materials lying in disarray and no workers in sight.

The Dong Thap government has asked the Transport Ministry to ensure the highway upgrade project is expedited, warning that any further delays would hurt the local economy.

Transport Minister Dung has said he would ask the PMU7 to urge contractors to crack the whip on their work or they would be replaced.

Dung said several sections on the highway could be finished by the end of this month, with the entire project to be finished by the end of next year.

Reported by Tien Trinh

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