Who has real traffic diversions experience in Hargeisa?

A firm with road and drainage experience does not always carry traffic diversions experience. The two are different jobs. Paving a carriageway, laying a culvert and compacting sub-base are construction skills. Planning a diversion, getting it looked at, setting out cones and signs, and holding that arrangement together while work moves along the road is a separate skill, and it has to be checked before award, not after the first conflict.

Why does traffic diversions experience get missed at bid stage?

Bid documents often ask for road works experience and then treat diversions as part of it, so a firm can pass the test without ever showing a diversion plan it wrote itself. The mechanism is simple: a contract lists completed road or drainage jobs, the evaluation team counts them, and no question is asked about who closed the lane, who signed the plan and who stood on the road when the arrangement failed. A contractor who worked as a subcontractor under another firm's diversion may hold no plan, no approval and no supervisor with that task on their record. To check the local situation, ask the municipal engineer's office what a road works application in that area must include and whether it holds records of past diversion arrangements on the same street. That answer tells you what evidence should exist. Until it is asked for, the gap stays invisible in the bid.

What conflicts near work zones does the gap create?

When nobody on site has run a diversion before, the layout tends to be set by whoever is available, and the first pressure removes it. Traffic, pedestrians and traders share the same strip, and the arrangement that makes sense at 7am may not hold at midday. Watch for signs placed once and never adjusted as the works move, cones spaced so a matatu or truck can pass one way but not both, and no clear route for people walking to the market. Pedestrians stepping into the carriageway near a work zone is one of the clearest signs the diversion was never planned for them. When the arrangement is unclear, an incident can draw police, the municipality and residents into the same dispute, and the contractor may end up arguing about liability. Check what the contract requires the contractor to do when the layout fails, and what notice the client must receive before the arrangement changes.

How do you test a diversion claim before award?

Ask for the plan, then ask who signed it and who ran it. A completed contract reference is not enough on its own; the useful evidence is the diversion drawing, the approval or acceptance it received from the road authority or municipality, and the name and role of the supervisor who set out the signs and adjusted them as work progressed. Then walk a diversion the contractor is running now, or one they finished recently, and compare what is on the ground with what is on the drawing. Ask the proposed supervisor two questions: how do you decide when to change the layout, and who do you call when it fails? A person who has run a diversion answers in steps. A person who has not describes the drawing again. Confirm any spacing, sign type or lighting arrangement against the project specification and the engineer, not against general practice alone, because requirements vary with road class and location.

What to do next

Before award, ask the municipal engineer's office what a diversion application in Hargeisa must contain, then request the diversion plan, its approval record and the proposed supervisor's name for the bid under review. Put those three items in the tender clarification and require a written answer. Score the answer, not the claim.