Over $300 million is projected to be spent this year on the completion of eight pump stations, a year after a contract for the supply of the pumps from India ended.
This information is contained in the capital projects profile for the Agriculture Ministry in the 2014 budget. Fourteen pumps were to be supplied by the Indian company Surendra under a 2011 contract funded by India. Under the $800 million contract there were supposed to be fixed and mobile pumps but it is unclear how many pumps have actually been supplied under the controversial contract. Leading government officials have also differed on whether the contract has been fulfilled. It would appear that some of the mobile pumps are here but there has been no commissioning by the Ministry of Agriculture and therefore no information on how and where they are functioning.
What is now clear is that the eight fixed pumps won’t be functioning anytime soon as the
