DREAM / The Prime Minister resigns and wakes up under the Parisian bridge!

 Kliko këtu për të tjera
Voxpress:

Light in the Arbri Street tunnel, but at what cost?

2023-12-27 17:02:38Fokus SHKRUAR NGA REDAKSIA VOX
Light in the Arbri Street tunnel, but at what cost?
Hawthorn tunnel

Sali Berisha entered the 2013 election campaign with the road construction card. Among the promises he made to the voters in Dibër, during that campaign, was the project and the agreement reached with a Chinese company for its construction.

The estimated cost was around 250 million euros. It is not known how the fate of this road would have turned out if Berisha had received a third mandate. What is known is that Berisha came from an experience of unfulfilled promises with Rrugga e Kombit and Rrugga e Elbasan. The promises were not kept either in the part of the deadlines set for their construction, nor in the part of their cost.

What is also known is that among the first promises that Edi Rama made to the people of Dibran after winning the elections of June 23, 2013, was the continuation of the project for the construction of Arbri Road. But, from what is said to what is done, there is a whole sea in between.

Work was interrupted for two more than two years. The agreement with the Chinese was broken, they were told that the Americans would enter, and even at that time there was talk of the Bechtel company, to which Rama recently gave the Skavica hydropower plant.

In addition, Rama considered the 250 million euro figure inflated for a C3 category road. In 2016, Rama opened the competition for its construction and promised the people of Dibran that he would not leave the Prime Minister's chair without completing Arbri Road.

In 2017, it was decided that neither the Chinese nor the Americans would build the road, but the Albanians. Gjoka Konstruksion was declared the winner of the disputed tender with the offer for the construction of the road with C2 standards.

The initial deadline for the completion of the works was set for 2022, but this deadline was pushed back two more times and has now gone at least to the end of next year. Officially, both the company and the Government have stated that the cause is the Murriz tunnel and the unstable composition of the subsoil that made drilling in it difficult.

Today, a year or so after the expiration of the deadline set in the contract, Edi Rama and Belinda Balluku themselves, accompanied by representatives of the Gjoka company, announced that there was light at the end of the Murriz tunnel. What they didn't say is at what cost.

Regarding the cost of this concession, like many other concessions, the Government is tight-lipped. Even the official data of the annual performance of the concessions, which as a rule should be published within half of the year, for 2022 are not yet public. The Ministry of Finance says that the delays related to this report are related to the non-submission of data by the contracting authorities. For Arbri Road, the responsible authorities are the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Albanian Road Authority.

In the absence of complete data from recent years, we are referring to the official data available for 2020, where there is a cacophony of figures between the Ministry of Finance, that of Infrastructure and the Albanian Road Authority.

According to the data of the Ministry of Finance in 2021, Arbri Road would cost around 220 million euros, or 60 million euros less than the initial forecast. On the other hand, the Albanian Road Authority says in 2021 that the road will cost 330 million euros.

At least 20 million euros are officially added to these figures, which the Gjoka Konstruksion company requested in addition to changing the tunnel project, the cost reaches 350 million euros.

Today, years since the start of the works and 7 years since the promise that Edi Rama made to the people of Dibran that he would not leave the Prime Minister's office without completing the road, the only promise kept is this last one. The road is not over and Rama is still Prime Minister.

© Copyright Vox News

This article is exclusive to Vox News, it is copyrighted according to Law No. 35/2016, "On copyright and related rights". The article can be republished by other media only by citing Vox News and placing the source link at the end, otherwise any violator will be held responsible according to Article 178 of Law No. 35/2016.


Në përputhje me standarded JTI

Video

SHIKO KANALIN NE YOUTUBE
×