THE Government is set to extend the tender validity date on the Central-Wan Chai reclamation project for another month, from April 6, due to the impasse on finance talks for Chek Lap Kok and its associated railway.
With no sign of the airport talks resuming, contractors bidding for the Central and Wan Chai reclamation plan, which is to house the airport railway Central terminus, have been told to work out several options on delaying the project to May, June and July.
But there was no guarantee from the Government that the project could even be started by July. Beyond that date, reclamation work would not be completed by mid-1997 as scheduled, a contractor said.
Although the lack of a financial agreement was holding up the project, the contractor said he had not been told to drop the six-hectare site for the terminus, and allow the rest of the reclamation plan to go ahead for business use.
Despite the contractor's willingness to extend the contract for the 21-hectare site, as requested by the Government previously, he said his consortium had yet to decide whether to accept the offer for another extension.
A vice-director of the local branch of the New China News Agency, Mr Zhang Junsheng, yesterday blamed the British Hongkong Government for the project's delay, in not adhering to agreements set out in the Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) on the new airport.
He attacked the Government for its ''unenthusiastic attitude'' on settling the matter, by not proposing a new financial arrangement in accordance with the MOU.
