Who coordinates water and power trenches in Burao?

Where water and power are let as separate packages, the two crews often work from separate drawings. Utility coordination gaps in Burao appear when nobody holds one route plan for water, power and drainage, so the second crew cuts the first crew's duct or reopens backfill. The client sees the cost twice: once in the ground, once in the repair.

How does the coordination gap open up?

The gap opens before digging starts, when the client splits the work into packages and each contractor prices only its own scope. Water pipes, power ducts and drainage are drawn by different people, at different scales, with depths that do not agree. A supervisor trained on one trade reads only that trade's sheet. Where several crews share one corridor, the crossing points are the first thing to go wrong.

Ask the municipal engineer's office whether it holds any record of existing buried services for the plot or road. Treat whatever you receive as a starting point, not a survey, and mark it as unverified. Then make one drawing the controlling document: every line on it, with a level and a depth for each. General practice is to keep a clear separation between water and power runs, and to protect ducts where vehicles cross, but confirm the figures against the project specification or engineer.

What does the gap do to the work?

A late pipe or duct forces the crew to choose between waiting and cutting. Crews under programme pressure may choose to cut rather than wait. The result is a duct flattened under a pipe, a water line laid above a power run, or a drainage invert set higher than the outlet it must reach. Each fix buries a defect under the next layer.

The cost shows up later as a leak at a crossing, a cable pulled out for repair, or a street reopened after paving. It also hides in the programme: a crew that waits two days for a crossing level loses the week. Supervisors carry the blame while the real cause sits in the package split.

To detect it, walk a recent site in Burao and ask three questions. Where is the shared drawing, who updates it, and what is the level at each crossing? If the answers point to three different people, the gap is open. Compare the as-built record against what is visible at any chamber or manhole, and ask for the test record for the water line before it was covered.

How do you close the gap on your project?

Name one person as the utility coordinator and give that role to someone with authority to stop backfill. That person owns the single drawing, checks levels before covering, and signs the record.

Close the training side with three habits.

• Run a short crossing check before every pour or backfill: line, level, clearance, protection.
• Require each trade to mark its own line on the shared drawing the day it is laid, not at the end.
• Keep a photo and a level note for every crossing, filed by chainage or grid reference.

Where the contract allows, check what your agreement says about who pays for a re-excavation caused by another trade's line. Confirm the wording before work starts, not after a cut duct.

What to do next

Before the next trench opens in Burao, ask the municipal engineer's office for any existing service records for the road, then issue one combined route drawing with a level at every crossing. Walk the first trench with the coordinator, the water crew and the power crew together, and agree the order of laying before anyone lifts a shovel.