Minister of Regional Development and Public Works Andrey Tsekov told reporters on Thursday that the Hemus Motorway is hostage to flawed procurement carried out in 2018 and 2019, in absolute violation of the law, and to the inaction of several successive governments that have not stopped these practices or sought solutions. Tsekov stated that work on the completion of the highway is being carried out at an insufficient pace due to claims by the actual contractors of insufficient funds, i.e. indexations.
A working group is tasked with carrying out a legal analysis of the contracts. According to Tsekov, the indexation of funds for the construction of the sections of the highway could be no more than 30%.
The Minister said that at least three laws were violated when awarding the procurement, and these violations must be eliminated before work on the construction can continue.
The minister attended the first inspection of the Hemus Motorway section under warranty near Yablanitsa.
The Institute of Roads and Bridges is inspecting national roads and motorways that have entered service, and their warranty has not yet expired. Surface flatness measurements are scheduled to be taken on 13 road sections in September. The guiding principle in drawing up the schedule is to measure roads whose warranty will soon expire, Tsekov said. If the inspections find any irregularities, the state should be able to enforce its rights against the contractors.
Motorways have a warranty period of seven years, first-class roads’ warranty is five years, and third-class roads’ is three.
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