Bogota mayor presses Chinese-led consortium for more metro workers as auditors flag delays
Bogota mayor Carlos Fernando Galan has called on the Chinese-led consortium building the city’s first metro line to send more workers to its stations, after the country’s top auditor warned that delays in several parts of the project could push back its opening in March 2028. “We are entering a critical stage, which is the final stretch,” Galan said in an interview published by local news…
Bogota's mayor, Carlos Fernando Galan, has urged the Chinese-led consortium constructing the city's first metro line to increase staffing at the stations. This call comes after the country's top auditor raised concerns that delays in the project could push back its scheduled opening to March 2028. Galan, speaking to local news magazine Semana, emphasized that the city is in a critical stage, the final push towards completion. He urged Metro Linea 1 to put more workers on the stations.
The consortium, comprising China Harbour Engineering Company (CHEC) with an 85% stake and Xi’an Metro for the remaining 15%, secured the 24km (15 miles) elevated line in 2019, the largest international tender taken by a Chinese firm in Latin America. The contract is valued at approximately US$5.75 billion. Galan noted that the construction works are currently within acceptable schedule margins, with viaduct and trains on track and most of the fleet already in Bogota.
However, stations, public spaces, and communications systems are lagging behind, and he believes the real test is getting every part of the system to work together by September next year. This would allow for several months of trial runs without passengers, with viaduct completion expected in January or February. The current progress stands at 82.33% complete, against the 86.79% scheduled, according to the Comptroller General's Office.
Public works and station works remain significantly behind schedule at 52.34% and 19.24%, respectively. Leonidas Narvaez, head of Bogota Metro Company, acknowledged the delays and informed the consortium to hire more staff and expedite station work.
Pressure on CHEC has been mounting since August, when a video surfaced showing the legal representative of local subcontractor Union Temporal Metrobuild handing cash to a CHEC unit's commercial manager. Union Temporal Metrobuild, responsible for beams and substructures for the viaduct, claimed the money was a retention payment for overdue invoices.
CHEC's parent company has been under scrutiny by the US since 2020, with the Commerce Department adding several of its units to the Entity List over involvement in building artificial islands in the South China Sea. Despite this, the project remains on track, with Colombia's finance ministry recently authorizing the city to borrow up to 1.3 trillion pesos (US$400 million) from BNP Paribas to cover its share of the costs.
Written by urgent.news from South China Morning Post's reporting — not their text. Machine-written — may contain errors; check the original before relying on it.
