With their conflict in Holy Panooly now finished, the Macabee corporation has begun construction of the anticipated canal that will cut across the Isthmus of Jumanota. The naval passage is expected to open in nine years, although Navitek has expressed hope that the project will be completed ahead of schedule.
Large cargo ships are responsible for shipping building materials from the Empire to Jumanota.
With the help of thirty thousand contractors, Navitek began its occupation of Jumanota a month and a half ago. Holy Panooly unsuccessfully resisted, first being pushed out of the isthmus and then shattered in a week-long battle for Guamlumpeiron, a regional capital in the northeast corner of the country. The nation's likelihood of preserving was further diminished when Navitek struck an agreement with the Ordenite government. Their new-found allies had an interest in the southern coasts of Holy Panooly: to control a strategic asset in the southern half of Greater Díenstad. The arrival of Ordenite troops had freed Navitek's private military contractors to focus almost exclusively on continuing its drive south towards Panooly, the capital. Fedor's sudden, and unexpected, cease fire order then forced a lull upon the war and an uneasy peace has developed between the three belligerents. Although Holy Panooly has seen vast tracts of its land lost to occupiers, its subsequent collapse into civil war has impeded it from resisting the loss of Jumanota and the new Ordenite territory.
Because the Panooly civil war seems as if it will continue for quite some time, Navitek feels comfortable enough to continue with the construction of the canal. Since very nearly the beginning of the invasion, the company has been hiring an increasingly gargantuan labor force to dig out the path of the waterway. Much of this preliminary work has already been done, especially west of the Galden River which cuts near the center of the isthmus. The eastern half of the canal is not as well prepared, but the corporation hopes to complete the necessary foundational work soon, in order to start construction of the concrete and steel components of the water-bound passageway. While Navitek had always planned to recruit heavily from local population centers, it never expected the sheer demand for work that the Panooly people exhibited upon the company's arrival to Jumanota. Because of the labor supply willing and able to work on the project, the firm hopes that total construction time can be significantly trimmed — perhaps even by as much as, or more than, fifty percent.
Much of the time required for construction can be ascribed to the manufacturing of the individual components to the canal. Most of the materials must be imported from Theohuanacu and the Macabee mainland. While not so bad between Theohuanacu and Jumanota, shipping times between the provinces and Navitek's new colony can often be rather long and inconvenient. While the sheer amount of work left to do now means there's very little downtime, even when most of the necessary materials haven't arrived to the site yet, the firm will have to figure out a plan for minimizing the amount of dead time once the number of tasks begins to diminish. Time lost is time that Navitek won't be able to spend collecting fees from clients using the canal to traverse the seas on either side of Holy Panooly.
Another source of lost time are militant attacks on the project site. This problem has continued to bog down construction of the Fedala–Gus'Líam highway, which cuts across Zarbia, Nuevo León, and Monzarc. To protect their investment, Navitek will continue to count on the services of over 15,000 private military contractors. These soldiers are not only responsible for defending the canal, but have also been ordered to secure local populations and to take over the institutions of justice until an adequate indigenous security force emerges. This suggests that the contractor presence will continue for quite some time, with some predictions being as high as fifteen years. To amortize the cost of private security, it is believed that Navitek has offered the various contracted defense agencies free passage through the canal for an unknown number of years — a very similar agreement to the one struck with Navitek.
To further minimize the likelihood of loss, some believe that Navitek will appeal to the Golden Throne for security. Specifically, the ongoing civil war in Holy Panooly is unlikely to continue without some form of intervention performed by the Second Empire. Some political analysts in Fedala have gone as far as to suggest that Fedor is looking into the deployment of a peacekeeping force, which would not only establish peace in what was formerly an allied country, but would also serve to stabilize the nation's new borders with Navitek and United World Order. Given the Second Empire's current 'peacekeeping' deployments in its new territories, such a venture may come at a price that Fedor is unwilling to pay. To help assuage the Imperial Government's financial concerns, Navitek may offer a similar free-passage deal to Fedala.
The reception of the news concerning Navitek's canal project has been mixed. Some have criticized the corporation for taking advantage of the low wage level in Holy Panooly to hire large amounts of very cheap labor. By some accounts, the average hourly income of a Panooly laborer in Jumanota is the rough equivalent of two ríokmarks. The company's economists have responded by publishing data showing upward changes in wages as a result of Navitek's local investment. There have also been complaints of low safety standards. No official statistics have been published, but there have been reports of at least nine on-site deaths. For the most part, Panooly laborers do not have the legal recourse to seek compensation for workplace injuries. On the other hand, Navitek has been praised for shortening distances between trade partners, increasing regional gross domestic product. There has also been faint praise for the investment in Holy Panooly, a country which has seem most of its foreign capital stocks take flight during the past two decades.
This long-term canal project may be the first of its kind in Greater Díenstadi history. Certainly, there have been no cases of private occupations of territory held by foreign governments. Neither have very many sea-based investments been made. While various governments may invest locally on canals and other waterways, these types of international programs have so far been rare. Navitek, however, has seemed to change that trend. Other companies have already begun planning similar canal projects elsewhere, including one cutting across a relatively narrow stretch of Havenic land, near the south of that nation. One issue not yet addressed by any party is the friction developing between private parties and governments, since the latter entities do not always agree with the degree of belligerence these corporations have shown at the time of securing their investments. How the situation will develop in the future, only time will be able to tell.