MANS demands from the Ministry of Transport and Maritime Affairs of Montenegro and the Government of Montenegro to immediately announce how much more money is requested by the company “China Road and Bridge Corporation” (CRBC) for the completion of the first section of the highway Bar – Boljare, and why.
The director of the business unit for management of the highway construction project of “Monteput”, Goran Vujović, announced today that the completion of the construction of the priority section of the highway would be further delayed, that the contractor “CRBC” asked for “additional payments”, and that the Supervising Authority is currently assessing the justification of this request.
The deadline for the completion of the highway was already moved to September this year, while the new extension would further delay the moment when the state will start generating income from this project. Moreover, any additional payments would also affect the Government’s ability to service the start of repayment of the loan taken at the EXIM Bank, which is scheduled for next year.
The first moving of deadline was accepted without clearly defined responsibility for the poor preparation of the technical documentation, the forgotten loop at Smokovac, and the fact that “someone from the Government” forgot that the future highway would need electricity and water, which cost us additional tens of millions of Euros.
In addition, most of the information related to this project has been declared secret by the Government, and to date, Montenegrin citizens who are expected to fund all this have no information on how it negotiates with CRBC and to what extent the public interest is protected in these negotiations.
What is known is the fact that after declaring the epidemic of the new coronavirus, one of the first measures of the Government support was the one related to the highway project and contractors whose machines have not stopped working, while citizens have been locked in their homes, and all small business activities have been paused.
The reasons mentioned today by Vujović rely mostly on the so-called “force majeure” clause, referring specifically to the coronavirus epidemic and adverse weather conditions this winter, which is why CRBC allegedly had trouble maintaining the planned pace of work.
When it comes to coronavirus, it is important to remind that the Chinese authorities declared an epidemic on their territory in early December last year, and that CRBC, according to Vujović, sent its workers on vacation from Montenegro to China in January and February, precisely to the province of Wuhan which was the epicentre of the now global epidemiological crisis.
This speaks very clearly of CRBC’s irresponsibility towards the commitments made in this project, which is why it is important that there is someone on the other side of the table who will protect the interest of citizens during the negotiations on a new extension of deadline and especially on aditional payments.
When it comes to weather conditions, we are talking about one of the mildest winters since the construction of the highway began, thus, we doubt that this is one of the real reasons for the possible extension of the project completion deadline.
Due to all of the above, it is very important for the public of Montenegro to be aware of all the details related to the announced latest extension of the deadline, and that the decision on spending extra money of citizens is not made behind closed doors. Previous experience has shown that such negotiations have always been to the detriment of the state budget, and that public officials who have participated in them to date have not borne any responsibility for the fact that we pay the most expensive kilometres of highway in Europe.
MANS
