The reason for the delays in eight of the 23 road infrastructure construction sites behind schedule is, as the national company for road infrastructure management (CNAIR) says, “poor mobilization of builder on the site”.
On the other hand, the companies in the Federation of construction companies’ owners say that companies with too few employees or none at all win tenders, bidding a low price, even lower than they could possibly work with, and then tender results are challenged because the project documentation is not done “down to a comma”.
When the project is supposed to theoretically start, the lack of workers and the incomplete feasibility studies lead to blockages, so road construction is stuck for years while the people lose time, money and even lives because of the accidents on those sectors. Moreover, the Federation chairman Cristian Erbasu says that the shortage of construction workers will reach more than 220,000 people next year while some companies like Bog’Art have recently started using workers from Vietnam to be able to meet the deadlines in its contracts.
Transport Minister Razvan Cuc on Monday signed the contract to design and build section 5 of the Comarnic-Brasov highway with SC Alpenside SRL and Specialist Consulting SRL. Alpenside posted 106 million lei (EUR23 million) revenue and RON8.8 million losses in 2016, when it had 138 employees and its core business is “Construction of utility projects for fluids”. Alpenside SRL, formerly Util Construct Plus, held by Florin Cristian Mihai, has previously worked on expansion of underground networks in Ploiesti, street repairs in Bucharest’s Sector 4, alleys and sidewalks and improvement of energy efficiency of apartment buildings in Sector 3 or the teardown and rebuilding of the city hall in Fetesti (southern Romania).
Cristian Erbasu, owner of Constructii Erbasu company, once told ZF in an interview that the infrastructure construction was mostly down to ‘luck’, and ‘luck’ meant experienced companies, which have the necessary workers, winning contracts. (EUR1=RON4.5871)
(English version by Loredana Fratila-Cristescu)