COVID-19’s fourth wave: challenges and achievements of the Aus4Transport Program
Freddy Salvador, Aus4Transport’s Deputy Team Leader.
“Since May this year, we have been experiencing the last wave of Covid-19 in Vietnam, which has placed a lot of pressure on businesses. We are fully supportive of the efforts of the government is putting to control the pandemic, and so, we have closed the office (in principle) now for a month and a half, and all the staff, including our sub-consultant firms, and consulting individuals, are working from home.
We have been keeping in good communication with our stakeholders: with DFAT, with the Ministry of Transport staff, with the agencies working with the Ministry and also the consulting firms delivering the services.
We have been experiencing a lot of challenges during this period, but one of the positive things that we have managed to get is the Subsidiary Agreement extended for the next year, which meant that meant we have now managed to get approval for new activities.
Because of this, we had to conduct procurement of services, recruitment of individual consultants, and approval of a series of documentations for these activities, all while working from home. So, it has been challenging, but we have managed to progress, and we continue to progress in all of our activities.
The future is also bringing more challenges for us, as some of the activities require fieldwork, meaning the firms or the individual consultants need to go the provinces where we are working, and essentially talk to the local authorities, the communities, enterprises, or carry out data collection on the infrastructure. Because of the restriction of the movement at the moment we are not able to carry out these activities
We have tried to conduct as much as we can via online meetings or virtual meetings. However, there is only a limitation of activities you can progress that way. So, we will continue to work with stakeholders to find the solution on how to get the activities moving without causing delay, at the same time we comply with the government’s current measures to control the pandemic.
From the Aus4Transport Team we would like to thank all of our counterpart including the Ministry of Transport, Ministry of Transport’s agencies, DFAT, the banks, individual consultants and the consultant firms that are currently supporting us with the delivery of activities in the program.
Thank you”.
