Road Infrastructure Agency will spend more than BGN1 million to promote a number of road projects, even though their best image has long been the Prime Minister Boyko Borisov himself.
For carrying out activities and public communication for Lot 2, 3 and 4 of Trakia highway over BGN313,000, VAT excluded, has been provided. Against this amount the winner of the contract will have to manage cooperation with the electronic and print media at regional and national level, as well as organize public events (conferences, debates, seminars, workshops, etc..) and develop and maintain a website, brochures and information CDs.
Realistically, spending money to promote Trakia highway is completely unnecessary. In recent years the completion of the highway between Sofia and Burgas has become an emblem for no government and there has been no media in the country – national or regional – that would not monitor the construction process. Not to mention that Prime Minister Borisov together with the Minister of Regional Development Liliana Pavlova and Transport Minister Ivaylo Moscovski regularly inspect its progress, which is thoroughly covered by the media. The last one was just before Easter and caused a lot of comments even in spite of the holidays.
Development and maintenance of a website also seems pointless for a highway as information on individual lots (including recent photographs) is available on the sites of contractors (Trace, Aktor and Holding Roads), and the pages of the Transport operational programme . The existence of a separate site is further unjustifiable especially in the backdrop of the recent government assurances that by 30 June 2012 Lot 2, Lot 3 and 18 km from Lot 4 are to be ready. However, the selection process for a company to advertise Trakia highway has been opened. On April 10, the state opened the bids of the four candidates – MAG Advertising, Consortium CIC Golden Age, Association PR Media Roads 2012 and Consortium Prime Time – Master IP. Even if the name of the winner becomes clear until the end of April, the contractor will have only about two months to do the promotion job, before the highway is ready.
Approximately the same is the situation with the selection of a contractor to operate Publicity and Visualization of the objects of the fourth stage of Regional Development OP 2007-2013. A total of BGN660,000, without VAT, has been envisaged to go for this activity. In the year and a half that remain until the end of the programme period, this contractor will have to provide media and promotion services for 25 road segments, grouped into 15 lots. This includes the organization of at least two conferences with the participation of a minimum of four representatives of mass media. One of the tasks is two achieve the publication of at least three articles in (regional or national) media. The requirement here is to highlight the contribution of the European Union in the improvement of road infrastructure in the region. Other commitments include installation and maintenance of information boards for each of the 25 road sections during the construction, which will subsequently be replaced by permanent billboards. It seems that the last point severely limited the number of contenders and only two candidates turned up – again MAG Advertising of Krassen Kralev and Grain Advertising – owned by Martin Batkov.
Apart from the advertising contracts under the Transport and Regional Development operational programmes other BGN135,000. without VAT, will go to information and publicity campaigns on projects for road rehabilitation of the trans-border rehabilitation programme Romania – Bulgaria 2007-2013. Here, the contracting authority wants press releases, press conferences, publication of information on the website of the district administration and that of the Road Infrastructure for the course of construction, installation and maintenance of billboards, development of promotional materials, end so on. Applicants here are three, and among them again is MAG Advertising. The other two are PR Media Roads 2012 and Eurapel Communications.
