Azerbaijan, Baku, Dec. 27 / E.Ismayilov/
The Azerbaijani Transport Ministry has appealed to the Asian Development Bank (ADB) with a proposal to announce a new tender to determine contractors under the construction of four-lane Masalli-Astara high-speed road, a source in the Ministry told Trend on Tuesday.
In the second half of January the ministry plans to solve finally a question of tender procedure: either the current tender will be cancelled and a new one will be announced or tender's participants will have to update their proposals, the Transport Ministry told.
The contractors are determined for the construction of B and C sites and report on tender procedure has been submitted to the Asian bank.
Since the tender procedure has continued for 1 year, bids presented by the companies became obsolete and require improvement. Moreover, the ministry plans to bring project works closer to land purchase rate, i.e. it is possible to change parameters of road sections.
The purchase of land under the construction of a new four-lane road is still to be solved. Land purchase process drags on because some share owners of land are now abroad.
In any case, changes to the project will not require attraction of additional funds, because the loan worth $200 million approved recently by ADB already includes incidental expenses.
These funds were allocated from the Multitranche Financing Facility (MFF) for Road Network Development Program in Azerbaijan to the amount of $200 million approved in August 2007. MFF has already allocated $455.4 million.
The first tranche of $200 million has been allocated to construct the road Masalli-Astara, the second ($55.4 million) to reconstruct the Ganja circle road, the third ($200 million) to o continue the construction of the Masalli-Astara road.
Azerinsaatservis construction company was chosen to build the first section of the road (A)