Public projects in the south of Bahrain have more than doubled in cost because of government delays in executing them, it was claimed yesterday.

The projects include investment buildings, public parks, gardens and even the new Southern Municipality complex, said a report in our sister publication Gulf Daily News.

If they had been carried out on time they would have cost the Southern Municipality BD7 million ($18.5 million), according to council chairman Ali Al Mohannadi.

However, he said they would now cost BD15m due to rising land prices and increased costs of building materials.

He added the problem was made worse by projects being redesigned, which meant they often required more money to carry out.

'The only excuse they have is that the designs were being changed constantly to ensure that updates were carried out, since the municipality wants the best projects possible,' Mr Al Mohannadi said at yesterday's council meeting.

'Designs cost the municipality huge sums of money and instead of giving them back to engineers, who take a long time, we can start building and then carrying out future updates.'

He claimed the Southern Municipality was unable to carry out half of the projects it had planned because of the increased costs.- TradeArabia News Service