The Local Self-Government Centre (CLS) said today that Belgrade’s new main bus station will not be completed before the end of 2022, although the last deadline was February this year and the initial deadline was September 2019.
“The construction work has stopped because the planned budget of 21 million euros has been exceeded and the station is not even close to completion. BAS (Beogradska autobuska stanica) is therefore forced to take out two more bank loans, and according to the latest calculations, the new bus station will eventually cost about 42 million euros,” said CLS director Nikola Jovanović in a press release.
“From the very beginning, CLS was quite critical of the 2017 agreement between the Belgrade authorities and BAS (Belgrade Bus Station) stipulating the construction of a new bus station, as it was unclear why BAS was chosen as a strategic project partner and no mandatory a public call for submission of tenders was launched. Also, nobody assessed BAS’ capacity to carry out such a strategic project” – Jovanović says and adds:
Outgoing deputy mayor Goran Vesić and BAS director Andjelko Mučibabić are the only main people to be blamed for the debacle which is the relocation of the main bus station to Novi Beograd, as they made the wrong decisions regarding the construction, financial projections and selection of the contractor.”
(Nova, 16.05.2022)
https://nova.rs/vesti/drustvo/nista-od-nove-stanice-u-beogradu-ni-ove-godine-vesic-se-ispromasivao/
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