Public procurement contracts financed with public funds must be completely transparent, and the practice of dividing a road repair into separate contracts for asphalt, guardrails, markings and road signs must be stopped. This was stated by the former Minister of Regional Development Violeta Komitova.
Her comment comes after the institutions presented data on public procurement for guardrails. According to the Minister of Innovation Ivan Vassilev, three associations and one company received 99.6% of the funds provided by the state for the public procurement for guardrails under consideration.
A contract by the “Road Infrastructure“ Agency from April 2022, divided into six separate items, was initially estimated to be worth nearly 254 million leva. Subsequently, the contracts were indexed by another 161 million leva and the total value exceeded 400 million leva, Vassilev announced.
Komitova said that back in 2021 she raised the issue of the way in which road maintenance and repair contracts are awarded.
As a regional minister at the time, she terminated contracts for current repair and maintenance worth about 2 billion leva.
According to her, one of the main problems is the separation of the individual elements of road repair.
“The asphalt is in one order, the guardrails are in another order, the road signs in a third and the markings in a fourth“, said Komitova.
According to her, the repair should be considered as a single complete construction product for which one company is responsible.
“How can one road repairs to be carried out in four orders - asphalt, guardrails, markings and road signs?“, she asked.
Komitova claims that the method of awarding has led to the concentration of orders for guardrails among a limited number of companies.
According to her, similar dependencies exist for markings and road signs.
The data presented by Minister Ivan Vassilev show a high concentration specifically in the considered orders for guardrails - three associations and one company received 99.6% of the funds. However, Vassilev himself emphasized that the establishment of connections or concentration in itself does not prove an infringement.
Komitova went further and defined the participants in this market as “monopolists“, organized in her opinion in a manner resembling a cartel.
The former regional minister also criticized the regulatory framework for road restraint systems.
According to her, it places too much emphasis on elastic safety fences and limits the possibility of using concrete barriers in certain sections.
Komitova defended the thesis that the two types of systems have different advantages and disadvantages and the choice should depend on the specific section.
“Everything has advantages and disadvantages“, she stated.
“Concrete barriers have both advantages and disadvantages, as do other elastic fences. For example, if we have to protect a column on a bridge with an elastic fence, with a guardrail, we cannot protect it. A 30-ton truck, if it crashes into the elastic fence and knocks down the column on the bridge, what happens? We can only protect it with concrete barriers in dangerous areas. Practice shows that there are much fewer deaths with concrete barriers. Drivers comply with them more, protect their cars, go around them. If they accidentally hit them, they take a more serious hit, not like elastic fences. So everything has advantages and disadvantages. But to ban concrete barriers altogether - you know that we don't put any of them anywhere in Bulgaria. And this is a consequence of this regulation“, commented Komitova.
She also raised the issue of testing and certification of the guardrails.
Interior Minister Ivan Demerdzhiev also stated this week that the quality of the facilities is being checked. According to him, there are doubts that some of them may not have the necessary quality certificates, but he explicitly specified that at the moment these doubts have not yet been confirmed.
According to the former regional minister, one of the ways to limit abuses is complete transparency in the spending of budget funds.
She insists on legislative changes through which the contracts of companies implementing public procurement will be publicly available.