novinite 8 January 2010

Bulgaria Lyulin Highway Spot Check Fails to Account for Workers

A spot check of construction work on the Lyulin highway established that less than one fifth of the workers claimed by the contractor to be working, were actually on-site.

Government ministry officials, accompanied by the media, traveled on Friday along a 7 km stretch of the highway on the periphery of Sofia without seeing a single worker. At one point, they encountered a group of eight workers involved in laying shuttering for one of the bridges.

The Transport Ministry, which extended its tour of inspection, later announced they had counted a total of 130 persons. The contractor, Turkish company Mapa Cengiz had, however, declared there were more than 1 000 workers at the site.

Ivailo Moskovski, Deputy Minister of Transport defined the activity on construction of the highway as extremely unsatisfactory. The project is scheduled to be completed by October 13, 2010, but only some 6 kms of roadway of the total 19 have been completed;
after that, work is focused on building bridges and complex interchanges.

The entire highway project includes the construction of three tunnels with a total length of 1,26 kms, 26 bridges and viaducts with a total length of 6 kms, 3 junctions and supporting walls with length of over 2,5 kms.

"
We can not sanction Mapa Cengiz in the process of work, but only after the expiry of the contract and if the conditions in it have been violated,"
said Moscovski. He did not explain why the state had signed a contract in which its interests might not be protected, and where the failure of the contractor would require the state to return money to the European Commission.

The value of the project for construction of the highway is EUR 148,5 M, of which EUR 111,4 M has been provided by the ISPA program. To date, the contractor has spent one third of the total budget.

The European Commission had frozen those funds after a corruption scandal involving the former head of the Agency "
Road Infrastructure"
, the contracting authority.

Following requests and assurances from the Bulgarian side that the project would be implemented according to EU rules, Brussels had unfrozen the money. The highway, however, remains on the list of risky projects under ISPA, which will terminate at the end of 2010.

The worst scenario if the project was not completed on time, explained Moskovski, would mean the Bulgarian state having to return the EU funds. There were more favorable options, but these would need to be negotiated with the European Commission. These could include an extension to the EU program, although this is without precedent.

Sounds like some dodgy goings on there but its the poor Bulgarian who pays in the end one way or another but this is the sort of thing that will stop EU funding

[size=75:49zsinp2]Dnevnik 12 January 2010


Bulgaria could return Ispa funding for Lyulin motorway

The Bulgarian government is facing paying back financing spent under the EU’s Ispa pre-accession programme on the construction of Lyulin motorway linking Sofia and Pernik, deputy transport minister Ivaylo Moskovski told Dnevnik.

On Friday, he arrived on a surprise visit at the facility to discover it is lagging behind the schedule and ten times less people we working at the site.

The project is slated for completion by October 2010. A total of EUR 111.34 million of its EUR 148.4 million price tag comes under the European programme.

The construction contract with Turkish consortium Mapa- Mapa Cengiz was inked back in 2006 but just 40% of the building work has been completed so far.

“I’m expecting the project’s schedule from the project management. I’m afraid that with the current pace the project will not be completed within nine months,” Moskovski said.