Bechtel highway contract finally improved

Romanian Ministry of Transport made public on Friday the enhanced version of the contract between the Romanian authorities and the American company Bechtel for the construction of the Bucharest – Bors highway, a route that will span over the whole country. The new version fixed some shortcomings of the initial contract that did not allow the Romanian part to properly control the expenses.

The improved version of the contract entails lower costs for the Romanian authorities, fully respects the Romanian legislation, and elaborates on each phase of the construction avoiding redundancy of activities and expenses.

Romania will no longer pay in advance 250 million Euros, as foreseen in the first version, but will pay up to 30 percent of the workings yearly in advance, thus saving 80 million Euros.

The renegotiation of the contract clauses also saved a lot of money for the 2003-2005 workings, from 60 to 4 mln Euros.

The suspension of the construction is possible only in case of ware or terrorist acts.

The initial contract was signed by the then prime minister Nastase and was accused of many flaws, in particular by the lack of expenses management by the Romanian part.