Safer agreement committee (SAC) stressed the status of the Safer Reservoir calls for urgent and serious action to avoid a potential disaster as time no longer allows for procrastination.
In a statement, the committee said it would like to clarify that the statement issued on June 1st which indicated that the United Nations office submitted an action plan in violation of the urgent maintenance agreement and comprehensive evaluation of Safer Floating Tank and deleted most of the maintenance work stipulated in the agreement, and it turned the evaluation work into mere visual inspection work that is not based on any criteria, a meeting was held at the request of the UNOPS, during which its pledged to present an alternative plan in line with the agreement and gave it a deadline for this purpose.
The Committee noted that it was surprised that UNOPS had handed it over the new plan, which included the same previous non-conformity plan with only a document date has been changed.
The statement added, “The committee regrets the failure of the United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) to comply with the agreement signed in Nov. 2020 and its insistence on wasting time and wasting donors’ funds allocated to the project in fruitless meetings and discussions at a time the situation of Safer Floating Reservoir has become worse than it was before.
The Committee called on the United Nations to review the text of the agreement and the plan submitted by UNOPS which enables it to easily realize that the submitted plan has canceled 90% of the work stipulated in the urgent maintenance agreement and the comprehensive evaluation of Safer and work to correct it unless it bears full responsibility for an imminent disaster for the environment in the Red Sea and other neighboring countries.
It called for the United Nations to deal with the matter responsibly and quickly, bringing the agreement back on the right path.
