It took a few days to the President of the Management Board of the Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA) Lazarov to carry out what he threatened would do and begin terminate most of the tenders for road construction made during the period in office of the Cabinet Oresharsky. “I found at the agency tens of procurement procedures, most of which were announced together in the last days of June. Here we are talking about construction and rehabilitation of roads worth about 700 million levs. They will be examined and where deadlines for submission of tender offers has not yet passed the auctions will be canceled. Most likely the state will withdraw from most of them because there are no funds for them,” said Lazarov immediately after his appointment in early August.
No sooner said than done. By decision of Lazar Lazarov as 1 September the tender for construction of the 5.5-kilometre extension of the western arc of the ring road of the capital city of Sofia from the river Kakach to the North Tangent has been stopped. The procedure started in 2013, but the opening of price bids took place in mid-August, when it became clear that the only candidate was Trace Group Hold with a proposal of 90 million levs. The other seven participants were never ranked because of gaps in the technical part of the documentation. Subsequently, the auction was canceled and it was announced again on June 27 this year, and the indicative value was 92.72 million levs, VAT excluded. It turned out, however, that this order was challenged before the Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC). Antitrust agency refused to initiate proceedings on this case (August 7), but now the road agency stops the auction on the murky pretext that the Supreme Administrative Court is very likely to annul the order of the CPC.
The worst in the whole situation is that this project, which after much effort was approved for funding by the European Commission, envisaged the spending of 30 million euros and now practically misses the last technical opportunity to be implemented in the current programming period. The amount in question will have to be transferred elsewhere, otherwise it will be irretrievably lost.
Similar is the fate of another highway project – the construction of the highway between the capital’s ring road and border crossing point Kalotina. It was suspended by order of 20 August this year. Yet on May 21, 2014 the Road Infrastructure Agency announced a tender to build a 31.5-kilometre route. The approximate value was 200 million levs without VAT, and the money is expected to come from the new edition of the Transport programme. In early August, the Commission for Protection of Competition issued a decision in which a bunch of violations were described at the opening of public procurement, which led to its final halt.
Now the highway to Serbia again will start from the beginning. Several days ago, under the chairmanship of the Deputy Minister of Regional Development, Angel Petrov, the National Expert Council of the Ministry of Regional Development approved the land plot plan of the route. The meeting adopted a zoning plan that is necessary to obtain an approval of the Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Regional Development Ekaterina Zaharieva. The document would again begin expropriation procedures, design and construction activities.
A major cut was caused to the large projects under the Transit Roads 5. Among the most recently stopped is the one estimated at 17.5 million euros Lot 23B, which included repair works on the first-class road between Kyustendil and Pernik, of the second-class one between Dupnitza and Samokov and on the third-class routes Kovachevtsi – Popovyane, Relyovo – Alino and Klissura – Samokov – Belchinski Bani.
The arguments of the road agency for this final action is taken, the road between Dupnitza and Samokov had to be repaired by a draft project drawn up in 2008-2009. It turns out, however, that the solution to the task is too old and the previous management RIA commissioned its update. However, this has changed not only the quantitative accounts reflecting the volume and type of construction works, but the mere task and scope of the contract. That is why it goes to the shelf.
The same will be the fate of Lot 24 of TRP 5 including the rehabilitation of third-class roads Samokov – Ihtiman and Zhivkovo – Verinsko (to the motorway junction Trakia). For these two segments a solid amount of 20 million euros (excluding VAT) was provided. Experts of Mr. Lazar Lazarov, however, here too found gaps in … their own work. They found that in the course of the procedure and in particular in the course of providing clarifications on the tender documentation technical requirements were set that subsequently could be considered by the inspection authorities on the procedure as restrictive.
Another section of the programme Transit Roads 5 – 15B also goes in the bin, and this one includes the rehabilitation of secondary road Plovdiv – Asenovgrad, plus the design and construction of the road junction Gorni Voden, for which a tender was opened worth 16 million euros on 30 June this year. Interestingly, the fate of this project keenly interested the MP from the ethnic Turk MRF Djevdet Chakarov, while he was still an MP in the previous National Assembly. Ultimately, however Lazar Lazarov found a legal neat way to send the road Plovdiv – Asenovgrad in the freezer, too.
In the subject matter of the contract the design of the junction Gorni Voden is included and for the purpose to the documentation was attached Terms of Reference for conducting these activities, too. Nevertheless, the guidelines for the preparation of the technical proposal did not expressly specify the deadline for the implementation of the design, respectively deadline for approval of the project by the sponsor and for the issue of a building permit. However, only after this is done will the participants indicate the timetable for implementation of the construction works. The lack of such instructions to the participants would lead to the preparation, and respectively – to submitting proposals that cannot be assessed on the principle of equality and non-discrimination, as required by the Public Procurement Act, experts from the road agency said, justifying their decision to halt this project, too.
Better times will have to be waited by the project for repairing the road Yambol – Sredets, together with the junction Yambol – Kabyle – Bezmer. For this project a total of 30 million euros (excluding VAT), was envisaged, again under the TRP 5. Technical deficiencies in the announcement were found so that the experts may terminate this order too.
It is obvious that the priorities of the cabinet in the road sector differ greatly from those of their predecessors. Desislava Terzieva is boasting about her new policy in the road sector, where attention was directed to the secondary and tertiary roads. Last week, however, the Road Infrastructure Agency said its experts were working on the preparation of the Transit Roads 6 and the main project, which they will include for funding with funds from the European Investment Bank and the state budget is to build a speed road Vidin – Botevgrad. This will enable the project to start this year. Four sections have been identified – Vidin – Montana, Montana – Vratsa, Vratsa – Mezdra and Mezdra – Botevgrad.
In such a move, there is definitely more logic, since E-79 performs the transport links between the three European countries – Romania, Bulgaria and Greece. With the commissioning of the second bridge over the river Danube at Vidin – Calafat transit flows through northwestern Bulgaria increased. The direction is used as the shortest route between Western, Central Europe and the Aegean Sea, as well as one connecting Europe to Asia.
Otherwise, the programme Transit Roads 6 will co-finance also part of the motorway ring of Bulgaria, due to the limited financial resources of the operational program Transport and because the transport infrastructure 2014-2020 can not be included there. Among them are expected to be precisely the now suspended highway projects Sofia – Kalotina and the ring road of Sofia.
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