Cabinet to Decide on Bratislava Bypass, Brecely Wants to Sign
Bratislava, May 10 (TASR) – The Cabinet will discuss the Bratislava bypass at its session on Wednesday, confirmed Transport, Construction and Regional Development Minister Roman Brecely (a Siet/Network nominee) on Tuesday.
The ministry has until Friday (May 13) to sign the concession contract. Otherwise, the whole public procurement process might have to be repeated.
“I couldn’t do that [not sign the contract] to the people of Bratislava. The contract is ready, and I’m only waiting for the Government to give me a mandate to sign it. Then it will only be up to the contractor to get ready and sign as well,” said Brecely.
SME daily was the first to provide information about Brecely’s decision on Tuesday.
An expert commission that was commissioned by the minister to review the contract hasn’t found any discrepancies. “We’ve managed to put a provision on letterbox companies in the contract. We’d like all the firms participating in this public contract to have unambiguous ownership structures,” emphasised Brecely.
The Zero Bypass consortium led by Spanish firm Cintra won the public tender and has pledged to build the bypass in four years and four months for annual instalments of €56.72 million over 30 years of operating the road, which will then be transferred into state ownership. After 30 years and with inflation taken into account the bypass should cost around €1.9 billion.
“The moment we start to implement the first phase, I assume that we’ll launch the selection of an advisor for the second phase – a tunnel under the Carpathians. That would be after 2020,” added Brecely.
