Flushing it down

A total of around MOP19 million (US$2.38) will be spent on two separate contracts for wastewater consulting and supervision until 2018, according to information published in the Official Gazette.
The largest of the two contracts, signed with Aecom Macau Company Ltd., amounts to a total of MOP11.75 million, to be paid between this year and 2018, with the bulk of payment – MOP10.58 million – to be allocated this year and next.
The second contract was awarded to a not-for-profit organisation – the Institute for the Development and Quality, Macau (IDQ) – and amounts to MOP7.57 million, with MOP3.4 million to be paid this year and MOP4.16 million in 2017. The non-profit organisation will oversee installations for wastewater and solid waste.
No stranger
Both of the groups have worked closely with the government before, with the IDQ completing quality assurance works on the Macau Cultural Centre and Handover Ceremony Building, as well as inspection works on the Sai Wan Bridge. Aecom recently won a tender for construction supervision on the Islands Hospital project totalling MOP197.6 million, to be paid in stages until 2019. In addition, its consultative works, costing the government MOP18.3 million, laid the groundwork for the Macao Tourism Industry Development Plan, which promotes increasing tourist visitation to 40 million by 2025. The group is also one of the members of a consortium that has won multiple contracts for the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau bridge.
The information on the contracts comes less than a week after an announcement by the Environmental Protection Bureau that it had decided not to carry out a large-scale upgrade on the wastewater treatment plant on the peninsula, due to the plant’s current condition, space limitations and related construction costs.