The stage of execution of highways on February 1 in percentage terms corresponds on the whole to the share of payments to the overall value of the contract, with payments being in some cases up to 5-6% ahead of works, but there are also bigger discrepancies. The best example is that of Contanta’s highway-standard ring road, whose execution stage on February 1 was 68%, but the roads authority had paid almost 83% of the value of the contract. The discrepancy is 15%. In other words, the roads authority paid for 15% more than it “received” from constructors on this construction site.
The overall value of building contracts for the 17 ongoing construction sites amounts to almost EUR2.6 billion, so one can say the roads authority has so far paid about half the overall cost, according to ZF calculations. An average execution stage of the 17 ongoing highway construction sites cannot be calculated because the roads authority has not supplied the stages of construction for all 17 highway construction sites.
Ziarul Financiar continues its series of articles seeking to shed light on how public money is spent for the construction of highways.
At ZF’s request, the roads authority has supplied the situation of payments until February 1, as well as the stages of execution of several road sections. In the case of some of the future highways, such as Deva-Orastie and Medgidia-Constanta, ZF calculations based on data from the roads authority show that at most 5-6% more was paid that was executed. In the case of Constanta’s ring road, though, around EUR84.4 million out of the EUR120 million value of the overall contract has been paid, equivalent to almost 83% of the contract. However, only 68% of the ring road had been completed by February 1.
“Whereas for some projects there are discrepancies between payments and the actual stage of execution, the execution will eventually catch up, considering that the necessary resources for the construction have been supplied,” says Laurentiu Plosceanu, president of the Romanian Association of Construction Entrepreneurs.
CNADNR paid EUR2.3 billion between 2005 and 2010 for highways, but only 89 kilometers were finalized during this period. According to ZF estimates that consider maximum cost standards in road infrastructure, EUR2.3 billion could have been enough to build almost 380 km of highway.
The road authority has been allocated the biggest amounts by the Transport Ministry and, between 2006 and 2011, had cumulated budgets of over EUR10 billion and finalized around 165 km of highway during the same period. The biggest number of km of highway, 58, were inaugurated last year, during Anca Boagiu’s tenure.
(English version by Daniela Stoican)