site.btaUPDATED State Owes Lv 34 Mln to Avtomagistrali Road Construction Company

The State owes 34 million leva to the state-owned Avtomagistrali road construction company for works on Lot 2 and 3 of Hemus Motorway, Regional Development and Public Works Minister Grozdan Karadjov said here Monday. He was speaking to the press during an inspection of a Hemus Motorway intersection with the road connecting Pleven and Lovech in North Central Bulgaria.

Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA) Chairman Todor Vassilev accompanied the Minister.

According to an estimate of Avtomagistrali representative Boris Shalev, Lot 2 of the motorway could be completed by November 2024 and Lot 3 in mid-2023. Shalev noted that the workers make slow progress due to the delayed payments by the government.

Minister Karadjov pointed out that he submitted operational information to the government back in February, asking for cooperation.

In his words, the whole issue with the in-house contracts, which were awarded to Avtomagistrali without competition, should be dealt with in parallel with the construction of sections 4,5 and 6.

What was also revealed during the inspection is that very little earthwork was performed in Lot 4 and 5, and the realistic deadline for completing the construction there, as well as Lot 4, is 2025 or 2026.

"If we do not complete them at the same time as Lots 1, 2 and 3, the busy traffic between Sofia and Varna would not be accommodated and would remain on the old road. Hemus Motorway is a dream which has been delayed for too long and it may become an utter fiasco. We have to cut the knot of in-house contracts", he said.

Lots 7,8 and 9 have never been designed, their route must be shifted, Karadjov added.

Asked why then would former Prime Minister Boyko Borissov say that the entire Hemus Motorway would be completed in 2024, Karadjov said that such a statement was probably made during an election campaign.

According to Karadjov, the repair and maintenance of the Bulgarian roads must be resumed immediately. Now only emergency maintenance is done, he added.

Last week the National Assembly postponed the adoption of a resolution to pay 50 per cent of the amount due to the road construction companies for repair and maintenance. This led to protests by hauliers in the Vitinya Pass and, later, in front of Parliament. Prime Minister Kiril Petkov came out to meet with the protesters, assuring them that the problem will be reviewed by Parliament next week, but only if there is a control mechanism on the funds which are to be allocated on repairs.

Meanwhile, employees of the Avtomagistrali Cherno More road construction company of Shumen (Northeastern Bulgaria) warned that they will stage a protest on April 13 by blocking three key road junctions. The workers are dissatisfied with the State who owes them 27.6 million leva for repairs on Trakia Motorway.

On March 14 the company announced that it was planning to lay off about 70 per cent of its staff, as it can no longer pay wages and social and health insurance contributions.

The problem with road repair aggravated when the contracts for road maintenance were terminated by the caretaker government of Stefan Yanev when it was clear that most exceeded many times the estimated costs. That was possible when major road repairs were designated as maintenance without proper documentation and supervision, making them illegal. Furthermore, the maintenance contracts were awarded through in-house procedures to Avtomagistrali but it subcontracted other companies for lack of capacity to do the work. The caretaker government promised to check every project but no results have been made public so far.

Now new procedures are expected to be opened for road repairs but before that some 1 billion leva have to be paid out under the old contracts.