After Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic opened the first phase of the Bar-Boljare highway on Wednesday, watchdogs called on the authorities to disclose its exact cost – and investigate possible corruption.
Montenegrin officials at the opening of Bar-Boljare highway first section. Photo: Government of Montenegro.
Montenegrin watchdogs have called on authorities to present the exact cost of the Bar-Boljare highway’s first phase, and investigate suspected corruption.
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Dritan Abazovic opened the first section of the highway, seven years after the Chinese-financed project started and drove up Montenegro’s public debt to 90.85 per cent of GDP.
The Bar-Boljare highway represents the Montenegrin leg of a larger highway that will run from the Adriatic coast to the Serbian capital, Belgrade.
Dejan Milovac, from the prominent watchdog MANS, said the project was not transparent from the start, calling on the government to disclose the precise costs of the first section.
“Even though the first section is finally finished, after almost seven years, we still do not have detailed and reliable information on how much the project cost and what the reasons for the delays were. We are also not informed whether the state adequately protected the public interest in the deal with the Chinese investors,” Milovac told BIRN.
“There was a lot of room for corruption, and authorities should present information about the financing of the highway,” he added.
The first 41-kilometer-long phase was built by the Chinese Road and Bridge Corporation, CRBC. It was 85-per-cent financed by a $810-million-loan from China’s Exim Bank.
In 2018, CRBC asked for another 115 million euros for subsequent works as well as the construction of a water supply and electricity network on the highway, which were not precised in the contract.
The first phase was to finish by November 2019. but completion was delayed three times due to technical issues and the COVID-19 pandemic.
On July 7, Minister of Finance Aleksandar Damjanovic said the project was implemented without parliamentary control, stressing that the total costs of the first phase could be as much as 1.2 billion euros.
“I am willing to reconsider some aspects of the project. We will know how much the first phase cost our state budget, but we can never know if we had to spend that much,” Damjanovic told television Vijesti.
Last November, the Ministry of Capital Investments published two previously confidential international feasibility studies, which suggested that the estimated cost of building the first phase of the Bar-Boljare highway had been exaggerated.
A feasibility study by URS Infrastructure and Environment, a British engineering consultancy, said the first phase of the highway should cost $803 million euros. Another study by another British consultancy, Scott Wilson Group, said it should cost $570 million.
The studies were carried out in 2009 and 2012, but the previous government, which launched the highway project, had classified them as confidential.
The EU also has concerns about the highway’s costs. In last year’s progress report, the European Commission noted that Montenegro had applied for co-financing for the construction of the second section of the highway under the Western Balkans Investment Framework.
“However, the application is on hold pending the finalization of the EU-financed cost-benefit analysis for the entire Bar-Boljare highway, including on recommended construction standards and suggested means of financing for the remaining sections,” the report said.
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