The 992 capacity students' hostel at the Garissa University will be completed in October.
The contractor on Friday told the County Development Implementation and Coordination Committee the project is 90 per cent complete and if he receives the funds he requested the hostel will be ready within the timeline.
The initial project of 750 student capacity hostel which was awarded on November 25, 2013, was to cost Sh427 million. However, it was suspended after the April 2, 2015, terror attack that left 148 people people, the majority of them students.
When work resumed in 2016, the contractor has been paid Sh469.7 million due to delayed payments and increased project costs. Project variations and the increased hostel capacity from 750 to 992 students made the cost to shoot up by more than Sh42 million.
The committee members also toured the Sh146 million perimeter wall built to secure the campus. The wall is 95 per cent complete.
Addressing the press after site visits, area county commissioner and chair of the committee Meru Mwangi said they are impressed with the progress of the work on the two projects.
Mwangi urged the contractor to ensure that the project is not only delivered in time but it should be done to the contract specifications in the Bill of Quantities.
He said that the government must get value for money.
In a meeting with the university’s project committee that was attended by the Garissa vice chancellor Prof Osman Warfa, the County Development Implementation and Coordination Committee raised concern that when the hostel is completed, the students enrolment will go up.
Warfa said that there is need to start construction of a more spacious tuition block because the current one used by the university was inherited from the Garissa Teachers College whose capacity was 400 students.
“We appreciate the funding provided by the national government for the two projects, but as the university expands, related needs come up,” Waefa said.
