Memorandum audit report on Sudan southern access road project no. 650-0036

Audit report covers the period 7/80-10/84 and is based on document review, site visits, and interviews with GOS, Government of Kenya, and contractor officials. The project failed to meet most of its objectives, due primarily to faulty project assumptions regarding GOS ability to provide routine road maintenance. Although the World Bank had proposed a separate project to strengthen GOS road maintenance capabilities, this project was never funded and the GOS has been unable - due to lack of personnel and of foreign exchange for equipment and fuel - to maintain project roads, which during the rainy season are passable only by four wheel drive vehicles. Other factors that contributed to nonattainment of project objectives included reopening of the traditional route between Sudan and Kenya, which lies through Uganda, and the division of southern Sudan into three provinces, further dividing the limited road equipment the GOS possesses. As of 9/84, the contractor had completed 96% of construction work. The Kenya portion of the road has not been completed due to a halt in funding until a dispute over the actual border line is resolved. The follow-on project, Southern Regional Road Maintenance and Rehabilitation, is facing similar pitfalls - lack of personnel and foreign exchange, civil strife in southern Sudan, and the lack of necessity for an alternate route, now that the Ugandan route appears secure. The project teaches that implementation should be stopped or curtailed when project design is found to be faulty.