The Minister of Infrastructure Belinda Balluku has announced the winner of the next concessionary contract for the construction, operation and maintenance of the Lekaj-Fier road axis.
The winner was the merger of Fusha sh.pk and several other companies, while the value of the financing will be 320 million euros without VAT for 46 kilometers, bringing the cost to 7 million euros per kilometer. The concession is provided for 35 years. The Lekaj Fier axis is already built and has the A standard, but requires adaptation to the parameters of the European Union as an A1 road with a speed of 120 kilometers per hour. Currently, this road is traveled at 90 kilometers per hour. To increase the speed by 30 kilometers more, the concessionaire will spend 7 million euros. Then he will put a beam to collect the payments for crossing this road. The Ministry of Infrastructure has planned that a vehicle that will pass from Milot to Fier will pay several times and in the end the figure will go up to one thousand Lek.
This axis is an integral part of the Milot-Fier highway, which the government has decided to divide into three lots and has made available 837 million euros of funds for only 90 km, almost 9.3 million euros/km, where 60% of the road is existing. For the other two lots, Milot-Thumanë and Kashar-Lekaj, there is still no winning company.
Meanwhile, this road is connected to that of Thumana Kashar, for which the government has decided to allow the concessionaire to generate income of 1.3 billion euros without VAT for 35 years with the installation of a beam, where cars will pay a minimum of 2.1 euros, reports TCH .
With only the two concession projects, Milot-Balldren and Milot-Fier (132 km together), the government has exhausted 60% of the estimated project cost for the entire highway. Both concession segments are at least 40-50% more expensive than donor-funded feasibility studies.