Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Today a session of the Governing Council of Millenium Challenge Account-Armenia SNCO has been held at the Office of Government, presided at by Council Chairman, RA Prime Minister Serzh Sargsyan.
The Governing Council has discussed and approved a package consisting of the application for a 7th disbursement under the program and relevant documents which will be submitted to the MCC. The given package comprises the application for disbursement and the quarterly financial statements, the reports on preconditions for disbursement and quarterly progress, the procurement plan and the report on procurements performance. It has been mentioned that under this application, Millenium Challenge Account-Armenia SNCO plans to receive USD 11,316,887 from the MCC in forthcoming quarter (April -June, 2008). These funds will be used to finance the following components: "Rehabilitation of Rural Roads," "Irrigated Agriculture," "Monitoring and Evaluation," "Program Management and Oversight." It has to be noted that as of December 1, 2007, the sums disbursed by the MCC totaled USD 11,260,479.
According to the quarterly report, the last quarter of 2007 was successful enough for the program. In particular, the start-up of works under the first activity -rehabilitation of a 24.5 km-long Armavir-Isahakian-Gyumri first road section has been announced, under the Irrigation component 2 basic contracts have been completed (contracts on final design and monitoring of 6 gravity systems and planned research for the feasibility study on restoration and increase of productivity of 68 pump-stations). There have also been completed the preparations for initial civil work under the Irrigation sub-program aimed at rehabilitating the tertiary canals in 4 communities near Yerevan. On a regular basis, training courses have been organized in various communities of Armenia under the Water-to-Market component. As of December 30, the "Management of Intra-farm Water Resources"and "Transition towards High-Value Agriculture" courses were attended by 5284 farmers (1085 women).
The session has also discussed and approved the competition results for those financial institutions having participated in the awards of loans under the MCA-Armenia program, awards of contracts on consulting services under the Final Design and Oversight for Construction of 4 Gravity Systems, as well as purchase of consulting services under the technical audit of work for roads featuring in the first package of Rehabilitation of Rural Roads activity.
The Governing Council has similarly approved the changes and amendments to the contract on the rehabilitation design and construction oversight for 6 main canals, which will be submitted for to the MCC for approval. The amendment will make it possible to extend the timing for construction of canal sections and complete rehabilitation work for 200 km-long targeted sites within 6 main canals, 165 hydraulic engineering facilities and 177 drainage systems.
The session has also discussed the MCC-formulated proposals concerning the competition for purchase of consulting services under the Capacity Building for Irrigation Management Entities component of Infrastructure Activity of the Irrigated Agriculture sub-program.
With reference to other agenda items, the Council membership was informed that the first package of proposals for the competition announced under the program on rehabilitation of rural roads had been launched the day before. Bids were reported to have been submitted for restoration of a total of 272 km-long road sections.
