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PARWAN PROVINCE, Afghanistan – It should never have succeeded, but the combined coalition and Afghan efforts resulted in the opening of the Surkhi Parsa District Afghan National Police Headquarters Jan. 27.
So many things factored against the construction and completion of this olive-green building: it needed to be built on the side of a mountain where falling dirt from the mountain could bury the structure, the building’s mountainside home is in Surkhi Parsa District, far away from materials and some of the skilled laborers needed, and many similar projects failed because of security issues.
“I love it,” U.S. Air Force Maj. Christopher Meeker, resident engineer for the Bagram-area U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, said of the new ANP station. “This is why we’re here, right? It’s beautiful.”
Beautiful though it is to him, getting to this opening ceremony involved a lot of frustration. Meeker, of Manito, Ill., said this building presents a challenge found across Afghanistan: the only available place to build is on the side of a mountain.
“The big problem we have in Afghanistan is a mountain, river, or farm,” Meeker said. “We can’t build on rivers, they don’t want us to build on farms, so we end up building all of our buildings on mountainsides like this, which presents some problems in how to control the slopes...”
But as Meeker pointed out, the bulk of the work and, thus frustration, was borne by the Afghans.
“This one was successful because of the Afghans governing themselves, securing themselves, and doing the construction themselves.”
The brunt of this work fell on UCC Budservice Construction & Engineering Company Limited. Karimullah Samadi, deputy general manager for UCC, said they faced several challenges in constructing this headquarters. The site’s remote location created problems with materials and labor. Yet it was a project he could be proud of, done by Afghans with the help of U.S. government funds.
“I am proud that we totally used Afghan labor, skilled and unskilled laborers, to construct this project based on the design and the standards that were given to us by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers,” Samadi said. “And really this is a place to be proud [of].”
One thing they can be proud of is additional security. Sayid Jan Mahmoud works in the new station’s detention center as a member of the ANA. Mahmoud also comes from Lolinj Village, located near the new station and able to receive some security from it.
“I would like to thank all of these countries, all of these coalition forces that participated in building this new building,” Mahmoud said through an interpreter. “I feel much [more] secure right now because I see the ANP is beside me.”
| Date Taken: | 01.27.2011 |
| Date Posted: | 01.29.2011 05:07 |
| Story ID: | 64434 |
| Location: | PARWAN PROVINCE, AF |
| Web Views: | 47 |
| Downloads: | 2 |
This work, Mountainside security: ANP open new district headquarters, by SGT Adam L. Mathis, identified by DVIDS, must comply with the restrictions shown on https://www.dvidshub.net/about/copyright.
