According to the statements from the Serbian authorities, the job on constructing the Belgrade subway will include companies from China and France, what violates the Law on Public Procurements and the Public-Private Partnership Law, the Transparency Serbia (TS) said on Tuesday.
TS recalls that two members of Serbia’s Government and the Belgrade Deputy Mayor had a meeting on Monday with the delegations from two French companies, Egis and Alstom, with the Belgrade subway project on the agenda, as a part of the President Emmanuel Macron’s visit to Serbia.
“Every piece of information about the subway published so far is not only confusing to the citizens, but it also points at mixed roles. Serbia and Belgrade should know in advance what they need and then look for relevant contractors,” TS said in a statement.
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Transparency Serbia adds that a plan for subway lines was changed to suit the needs of an investor of a current and several future projects, “instead of first finding a solution for the transport problems the commuters have.”
The statement went on to say that the fact that the Minister of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure Zorana Mihajlovic announced that the French and Chinese companies would bring new technologies to this projects, meant the decision on who would get the job was already made.
However, Mihajlovic said that the most important thing was to secure the funding for the project, which suggested that the money for the subway was still not allocated.
TS also said it asked the Government to clarify the deal with the Chinese partners regarding the construction of the subway, but the answer was that the issue was a business secret and that the Chinese side was against releasing further information.
In its statement, TS says further that it was not clear what the contents of the studies, drafted by Egis, were, which recently completed a previous study of the justification for building the Belgrade subway.
It is unclear what will the manner of the negotiations with the Chinese company Power China, which signed a Memorandum of Cooperation regarding the realization of the Belgrade subway project.
(Slobodna Evropa, 16.07.2019)
https://www.slobodnaevropa.org/a/30058191.html
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