Filenews 21 November 2024
Without even announcing the tenders for the completion of the first phase of the Paphos-Polis road, the cost will jump from €70 million to €90 million
The assessment was not made by café patrons but was made by the Minister of Transport, Mr. Alexis Vafeadis, who was speaking before the parliamentary Committee on Transport.
Replying to a question by MP Valentinos Fakontis, the Minister of Transport also said the following: "Regarding the cost and without a prior detailed estimate, but taking into account today's data, we know that due to inflation in recent years, everything points to an increase of 20-30% compared to the current ones in 2019 (when the project was awarded).
Therefore, a reasonable approach says that a project of €70 million based on 30% will potentially cost us an additional €20 million. That is, we expect a reasonable price to be €90 million.''
At this point, the minister added the following: "We should know, however, that the contract gives the right to the employer side, when the contract is terminated through the fault of the contractor, to ask the court for this additional cost to be paid by the contractor.
So, yes, we will have increased costs, but we say we will claim it in court and we think we have a good case to win them.
In addition, in this equation we must take into account the €30 million requested by the contractor (and now increased to €50 million) for the completion of the project, in order to make the comparison with a complete picture before us.
We should also take into account the pace at which the contractor has been working over the last 8-9 months and ask ourselves whether the project would be completed or whether other problems would arise. We must also answer: Did we have a choice before us? And if so, what was it? Shall we tell the contractor, continue and whenever you're done? And if the project were completed in 5-10 years, do we think we would safeguard the public interest?
Also, if we complete the project in 2-3 years, was the right decision to terminate the contract, yes or no?
We consider that we have done our duty and implemented the convention to the letter. We recognise that this is a setback. We recognize that we are inconvenience to people, but we believe that if we did not terminate the contract, we would not be in the public interest."
It is noted that a memorandum of the Auditor General states that the project presented serious delays from the beginning, since the financial progress of the work carried out amounted to only 11.6%. And this despite the fact that by then about 50% (47.6%) of the total time of completion of the project had elapsed".
