How do you check delay records in Qardho?

A delay claim in Qardho is only as strong as the records behind it, so treat every entry as an assertion until you test it. Ask for the programme baseline, the daily site record and the correspondence covering the same dates. Read them together. Where the three do not agree, the mismatch is where the claim's weakness stays hidden, and time and money can move without proof.

What makes a delay record count as evidence?

A record counts when you can trace it to a person, a date and an event, and when someone outside the claim prepared part of it. A handwritten note that says "late delivery" proves little by itself. It gains weight when the delivery note for the same load shows the same date, or when an inspection log shows the work stopped.

General practice in construction is to keep a daily record of labour, plant, weather and instructions, signed on the day by the site engineer and counter-signed by the supervisor. That is general practice, not a local rule, so confirm what the project specification and the engineer require. The test for any entry is simple:

• Does it carry a date and a name?
• Can you match it to a delivery note, a test result or a letter?
• Did the person who signed it have the authority to record that event?

Where does the evidence gap show up on a Qardho site?

It shows up as correspondence that was written after the event, not during it. A delay notice drafted months later, with an even set of dates and no supporting entries, is a drafting exercise rather than a record. Skilled claims people know that a record written on the day will contain gaps, contradictions and marginal notes. A clean reconstructed file usually signals that the daily records were never kept.

On a build in Qardho, watch these points:

• Programme baseline. Ask for the version issued before work started and the revision history. A baseline created after the delay cannot measure it.
• Suspension and instruction letters. Check the dates on letters from the client, the engineer and the contractor against the diary entries for those days.
• Resource records. Labour returns, plant hire sheets and concrete or block delivery notes give an independent trace of whether work actually stopped.
• Photographs. Ask for the date stamp and the location. A photograph with no reference point proves nothing.

How records are kept varies from site to site, so check the project's own record requirements first and then walk a recent site with the supervisor to see how the diary is filled in, rather than assuming a method.

How do you close the gap before you sign?

You close it by making the record requirement part of the contract and the payment process, not a document you request at the end. When the contract requires daily records signed by both sides, and when interim payments depend on those records, the file exists by the time a claim arrives.

Before you engage a contractor, ask for a sample week of records from a previous job in Qardho or elsewhere in Puntland. Ask who signs, how often, and what happens when the supervisor is off site. Read the contract conditions and the project specification directly to see what they require, and follow those terms rather than withholding anything on your own initiative.

For a disputed claim, set the record against these traces and list every gap:

1. Delivery notes and weighbridge tickets for the claimed period.
2. Test results and inspection logs, including any failed pour or rejected batch.
3. Letters and minutes, with the date sent and the date received.
4. Site diary entries, signed and counter-signed.

Where a gap remains, ask the contractor to explain it in writing. Where the explanation relies on a memory, note that.

What to do next

Pick one live or recent project and ask for the programme baseline, two weeks of signed daily records and the matching correspondence. Put the three documents side by side and mark every date that does not appear in all three. Send the marked list to the contractor and ask for the missing supporting documents before you accept any extension of time.