The promises of former Minister of Regional Development Desislava Terzieva that highways Maritza and Struma will be completed on time turned out to be an exaggeration. Last week her successor Caterina Zaharieva met with representatives of the Chamber of Builders and found out that the situation is even more deplorable than one could have thought. The stretches that are being worked on could possibly remain unfinished in 2015, if the state fails to provide the additional 140 million levs requested by construction companies, plus the additional time extension.
„There is a serious delay in the construction of highways Maritza and Struma, as well as in the western arc of the Sofia ring road. They can not be ready by the end of the year. Yet spot checks on each of the projects are to be made and when we summarize the issues in a report we will be able to talk with more details,“ Angel Petrov, Deputy Minister of Regional Development, responsible for road projects, told the BANKER weekly.
Most worrisome is the situation with highway Maritsa. First, the initial deadline for completion of the section between Dimitrovgrad and Harmanli that is being constructed by the venture between PST Holding and Austrian Porr, was August 2013. Because of financial problems of the contractor launch-date was postponed to February 2014. However, it also was not met and a new extension was given until June 2014. Another section of the Maritsa highway – from Orizishte to Dimitrovgrad, where the builder is Italian CCMD Ravenna with a major subcontractor Roads Plovdiv also fell behind of the preliminary schedules and got extension of the deadline to June 2014. These new deadlines, as it can be guessed, were not met – and ended up in new extensions.
Reasons set out in the annexes for extension are ongoing archaeological studies, delayed expropriation procedures, precipitation, change in government, strengthening of embankments, drainage, new lighting and installation of noise protection walls. With similar arguments on June 30, the consortium of PST Holding and Austrian Porr received additional 16.16 million levs , provided that the contract for construction of a 34-kilometre stretch is 122 million levs as a whole. Now the promises are that that will complete this stage of the Maritsa next spring.
For the stretch from Orizishte to Dimitrovgrad, the situation is just tragic. Nearly three years after the first sod was turned on the 31-kilometre stretch there are still areas where construction has not begun. The biggest problem are the claims of CCMD Ravenna for 76 million levs, given that they won the contract with a price 133.1 million levs as a whole. Their request was rejected by the former head of the road agency Stefan Chaikov, but now a new claim for 45 million levs has been placed.
After the change of power proved that the situation is different. Delays have on both sections of the highway Struma the cause is in the country – unfinished estranged listed in the documentation engineering networks and unreleased building permits individual sections.
For these reasons the company Actor that is building the 15-kilometre stretch from Sandanski to Kulata has requested an additional 39 million levs from the state. The Greeks won the tender for the section with a bid of 56 million levs without VAT and separately received additional 5.5 million levs on displacement of engineering infrastructure in March 2014.
The construction of the section from Dupnitsa to Blagoevgrad of the Struma motorway now only want an extension until October 2015 because of delays in building permits and ongoing archaeological excavations. In order not to delay the work, the Italian-Bulgarian consortium between Impreza, GBS Infrastructure Construction and Patstroy 92 is now buying land from owners along the highway instead of waiting for the state to do so, hoping then money can be recovered.
The construction of the Sofia ring road between highway Lulin and river Kakach is also stalled, which creates a lot of traffic conflicts on the western gate of the city. The tender for the section was won by the union Trace SOP with a price of 39.85 million levs and the work had to be completed by July this year. Despite having an extension until the end of the year now Trace SOP requested an additional 12 million levs.
A total failure proved to be the loudly acclaimed by Terzieva priority for rehabilitation of secondary roads in the country. The new Chairman of the Management Board of the Road Infrastructure Agency Lazar Lazarov said that he found works and projects for rehabilitation of roads of about 700 million levs, most of which were announced together in the last days of June. They will be examined and where deadlines for submission of tenders have not yet passed, the auctions will be canceled, promised Lazarov.
„These are projects that are financed by external loans and money from the budget, not the EU funds. The Cabinet may need to stop also procurement at an advanced stage for already submitted tender bids. Such is the case with the repair of the old sections of the highway Trakia that is to start in September. Companies want 2 million levs per kilometre for the rehabilitation of the highway. This is more than we can afford right now. The indicative value of the project is about 100 million levs and the participants have submitted bids for twice that price,“ Lazarov said.
At this background, the only good news is that with 492 million levs from the state budget the caretaker Government will unfreeze payments suspended from Brussels under the Operational Programme for Regional Development and Environment as quickly as possible. The funds will come mainly from the public investment programme Growth and Development of the Regions, which has a budget of 500 million levs.
Construction companies are to receive more than 1 billion levs under European projects – of which 304 million levs are under Environment OP, 188 million levs – under Regional Development and another 150 million levs under the Programme for Rural Development. In addition there are more than 300 million levs under all programs that are however not invoiced in order to avoid paying VAT due to the suspended payments.
First will be released the 188 million levs on Regional Development, and then the 304 million levs under the Environment Programme. Representatives of the interim government did not venture to set a period when these funds will be transferred to the accounts of municipalities, and hence – to the companies in order to pay delayed salaries of workers.
The BANKER
