2024-03-20 21:34:10
Two contracts were in effect at the same time for Dobrich and Varna, but API worked on the more expensive one
The legal mess with the road maintenance contracts has damaged the state with BGN 9 million, at least for now, it became clear during a meeting of the regional commission in the parliament.
In it, a signal was received, for the clarification of which the management board of the road agency was summoned to the commission. In the report, the author of which the deputies did not wish to reveal, it is claimed that at the end of last year for the districts of Varna and Dobrich
were acting simultaneously
two contracts
– one for emergency winter road maintenance and one for current road repair and maintenance. However, the specific work in both areas was awarded only under the emergency contract, in which the single activities are about 27% more expensive.
From the explanations of the head of the API management board, Yasen Yordanov, it emerged that this is indeed the case. The reason is that last year the road companies
massively appealed the announcement of
new procedures
for choosing companies to maintain the roads, which had lower unit prices than those operating until then. This forced the API management to extend the previous contracts with annexes only until the end of winter.
Especially for Varna and Dobrich, however, the procedures were not appealed, but nevertheless new ones were announced, companies were selected and contracts were concluded with them.
This is how the contracts were duplicated, for which two heads of departments – legal and road maintenance,
have notified the road management
agency until the end of December
Yordanov said the head of the legal directorate has already been fired, and in January regional minister Andrey Tsekov removed board member Desislava Paunova, who was in charge of the agency’s legal oversight. In front of the commission, the head of API Yasen Yordanov also read the letter with which he notified the minister about the situation.
Throughout November and December, however, the road maintenance companies in Varna and Dobrich carried out works for about BGN 36 million instead of BGN 27 million, as stipulated in the new contracts, which were also valid. Not everything is paid yet, but the paperwork is in order and the companies probably are
they will get their money
regardless of the misunderstanding.
According to the head of the parliamentary regional commission Nikolay Nankov (GERB), regardless of the removal of the head of the legal directorate of API and a member of the management board, he is forced to pass the signal to the prosecutor’s office.
The deputy head of the commission Yordan Ivanov (PP-DB) made a remark to the management of API that they still do not have publicly known conditions according to which they index the contracts with the companies due to the increased prices of the materials.
According to his data, there are requests for about BGN 1 billion for compensation from the road construction industry, of which
Payments only are satisfied
for BGN 361 million,
and the MP asked how the road agency decides on which requests to allocate money and on which – not.
The head of the road agency replied that the indexing methodology adopted by the cabinet was written clearly enough. According to her, the increased costs are compensated
only in the presence of
finance resource,
and the road agency itself has decided to prioritize the projects for which it will pay extra. Therefore, in general, indexes are made only for objects that are being worked on and the construction company has not stopped its activities due to lack of funds.