CNAIR again postpones the selection of the winner of the most expensive highway section

On October 15, the sixth deadline, which had been postponed several times before, for the planning of the Poarta Sălajului-Zalău-Nușfalău section as part of the Transilvania highway (41 km) expired. The planned route also includes an underground double tunnel with a length of 2.8 kilometers in each direction under the Meseș Mountains in Sălaj County. On Tuesday, CNAIR published on the national public procurement portal that the new deadline is October 31, 2024. This amendment represents an extension of approximately two weeks from the previous deadline of October 15. From the end of April, CNAIR postponed the deadline several times, first four times by one month each, then twice by two weeks each, to select the winner from among the three companies still in competition. The tender started already in February 2023. CNAIR has again announced a postponement, although its spokesman Alin Șerbănescu previously claimed that the October 15 deadline would be the latest decision. It didn't happen that way. Europa Liberă also wrote that a lack of funds could be behind the postponement of the deadlines, according to the president of the Pro Infrastructura association, Ionuț Ciurea. Romania's main source of highway financing, the 2021-2027 Transportation Program, is already oversubscribed. The budget for road infrastructure investments is approximately 5.5 billion euros, while the total value of the program is 9.6 billion euros (of which 4.6 billion euros are EU funds), but the total value of contracted and tendered investments is much higher, said Ciurea. “It's not about funding.

The problem is the huge amount of paperwork, annexes and situational assessments to be processed," Șerbănescu said at the time. The highest value highway contract The value of the contract is the largest that has ever been announced for the design and construction of a single highway in Romania, the amount can be estimated at 1.5-1.76 billion euros. Of the seven original participants, three companies remained in the competition: the Romanian UMB, the Turkish Makyol and the Italian Webuild. These companies have the most road infrastructure construction contracts in Romania. UMB works on approximately 350 km of expressway in Romania, including all sections of the A7 motorway in Moldova between Buzău and Pașcani, the Craiova-Pitești expressway and two sections of the Transilvania motorway. WeBuild works on two sections of the highway between Sibiu and Pitești and is also the contractor of the infamous Brăila Bridge, as well as railway contracts. Makyol is working on four sections of the Szeben-Fogaras (A13) highway, as well as one section of the A7, in cooperation with another Turkish company, Nurol. The high value of the contract that can be won provides financial resources for several years for the winning company, which is why the great competition is understandable, Alin Șerbănescu told Europa Libera earlier. The companies have strong teams of lawyers who specialize in infrastructure contracts, which puts additional pressure on the parties, he explained. The suspension of the procedures necessary for clarification between the participants and the objections submitted against CNAIR, as well as the remedial measures carried out by the state-owned company. The tender was launched more than a year and a half ago, in February 2023, after the government approved a higher budget than was first announced in 2022.