The Transport Ministry reported that the investor of the above project has actively worked with the People’s Committees of relevant localities for necessary procedures to exploit beach sand mines. However, the latter is rather hesitant and still waiting for instructions from the Ministry of Natural Resources and Environment for specific mechanisms to exploit beach sand as well as regulations on administrative boundaries at sea.
The result is that until the end of January 2024, the progress of sand mining to serve the Can Tho – Ca Mau Expressway construction project is extremely slow. Although the total capacity of the assigned sand mines is about 6.6 million cubic meters, due to limited exploitation, the daily supply is merely 16,000 cubic meters.
At the beginning of February 2024, another 10 mines are available; yet with the current permitted exploitation capacity, each day there is only an addition of 34,000 cubic meters per day for the above project, whereas the demand is 90,000 cubic meter a day to keep up with the construction schedule.
Therefore, to ensure the progress is maintained and the project can be finished in 2025, the Transport Ministry has proposed that the Prime Minister send a dispatch to direct the People’s Committees of the three provinces of An Giang, Dong Thap, and Vinh Long to urgently open the sand mines with completed exploitation procedure.
Simultaneously, the Prime Minister is suggested to ask related localities to check currently exploited mines with the priority to extended ones and investigate new mines in their area in order to increase the total exploitation capacity to serve the project. Particularly, the time to complete necessary procedures should be reduced so that those mines can be in use by March 15.
In addition, the People’s Committees of the provinces of Tien Giang, Soc Trang, Tra Vinh, and Ben Tre are requested to support the project investor and contractors to access river and beach sand mines in their areas.
