© Nadezhda Chipeva, Capital
– Violeta Komitova
The section of the Trakia highway between Chirpan and Stara Zagora, repaired this year, has no guarantee. Although the state has paid about BGN 200 million for the repair works, in case of a problem with the road surface, it will be necessary to withdraw money from the budget of the Road Infrastructure Agency (RIA). This became clear from an interview of the acting regional minister Violeta Komitova to BNT.
She explained that the section has passed in the column of current repairs or maintenance, due to which there is no approved project, construction permit and act 16 for commissioning. According to her, this is a vicious practice by previous rulers in order to make repairs faster.
“There was a speed limit in this section for five years. During that time, all the necessary documents could be obtained so that the repairs would not be ongoing, for which no guarantee is required. to build there. Almost all repairs, which are about 1.5 billion levs a year, do not pass as major repairs and so, as the roads are damaged, there is no company that is responsible, “said Komitova and specified that these practices the expression “repair of repairs” has appeared.
She added that she would suggest that such heavy and expensive repairs be done with all the necessary documents so that there could be a guarantee for the work done.
According to her, in April the RIA budget of BGN 300 million was exhausted and this necessitated additional money for winter cleaning in August. However, it turned out that the companies engaged in this activity did not receive their money for the previous winter, and she blamed the government of Boyko Borissov for that. Komitova calculated that RIA will need a budget of 1.5. billion levs so that companies can work smoothly in 2022.
Rising tolls for trucks and buses
The regional minister also said that the toll system is still not efficient enough. According to her calculations, the fees bring about BGN 380 million a year to the budget, but 75% of this money comes from vignettes and not from heavy traffic.
Therefore, an option is now being considered to expand the scope of the toll system, as well as raising prices for buses and trucks. She gave the example of a bus traveling from Bourgas to Sofia. For such a vehicle you pay 1 cent per kilometer and so it turns out that the fee that will be paid for this distance is BGN 3.60.
“We want to collect twice as much as before. And most of this money to come from buses and trucks,” Komitova added.
She added that since the beginning of the year, 27,000 overloaded trucks have entered the country, but due to poor work of the control bodies, the opportunity to collect about BGN 50 million under this item has been missed.
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