March, 12 2005	Saturday	1 Safar 1426

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LAHORE, March 10: Chinese contractors of the Gomal Zam dam have agreed to return to work after having stayed away five months.

According to officials of the Ministry of Water and Power, a team of the Chinese contractors met the prime minister in Islamabad on Friday and expressed willingness to return to the job after Wapda put up a ‘fool proof’ security cordon around the dam site and agreed to compensate for the losses. Wapda has also agreed to drop all contractual jobs (irrigation works) which expose foreign workers to public and endanger their security.

It may be mentioned that the Chinese contractors left the dam site in October last year after two of their engineers were kidnapped; one of them was subsequently killed by the kidnappers while the other was rescued by law-enforcing agencies.

According to ministry officials, the Chinese contractor had demanded around $96 million additional cost on various heads as a condition to return to work — $87 million for covering extra expenses for personnel, material, equipment, insurance, safety facility and other expenditures and $9 million as compensation for shooting and abduction incidents and cancellation of irrigation work.

They also demanded an extension of 33 months for completing the remaining works, they said.

The total contract cost of the project was $72 million. After the security crisis, the Chinese refused to continue with irrigation works because canals network ran through villages and exposed them to security hazards.