r - part - usaid

canstruclion over the twelve year life of the well, $38,579 for
the Bay Region and $46,563 for the Central Range, the current
price would need to be doubled far the Bay Region, and increased
to two and a half times for the Central Range,
4-6, Conclusions
That deep wells are expensive to construct in Somalia is
hardly a recent discovery. This regort provides up-to-date
infamation on exactly how expensive they axe or can Q Jlt
also provides sox@ useful clues as to where savings can be made
and greater efficiencies achieved,
4 Weil Construction.
Direct costs, though not fixed, probably cannot be varied
substantially. Alternative materials and suppliers might make
some i tems available at less cost. The use of PVC for screen
and casing in the areas where shallow wells make it appropriate
*"+:P be less expensive than steel. Reducing completed well
?--~meters from 8 inch to 6 inch would also provide considerable
saving without sacrifice to well construction. A Pump
manufacturing or asse~hly capability in Somalia would reduce
economic costs to tBe nation.
Major savings can be m~de in more efficient use of
equipment and vehicles. The equipment assigned to one project
drilling team represents a capital investment in excess of
$SQO,OOO. This sum, invested at 15%, would yield interest of
$250 per xorking day. Each drilling team should therefore aim
at a level of productivity equivalent to this sum. In this
context, having a driffing team unable to work for Pack of fuel
or spare parts can be seen as inordinately expensive, an expense
Ear in excess of the cost of the fuel or spare part causing the
delay, The actual downtime experiexced by the project, which is
discussed in Section 4.1.3, should be considered realistic, but
at the sane time unacceptably high. ~perating at this level of
downtime, the wells constructed during the project appear
costly.
There Is, however, an alternative way to view this. Rather
than an institutional support project producing expensive wells,
the Comprehensive Groundwater Development Project can be seen as
a well drilling project providing very expensive institutional
support. The difference might appear academic until alternative
ways of providing institutional support are considered. In
short, the cost of combining production with on-the-job training
in the drilling ind~stry is unreasonably high because of the
cost of capital investment involved.