site.btaPublic Works Minister Nankov: "Government Has Launched Lv 1,400 Mln Worth of Road Projects since May 5, 2017"

Sofia, May 3 (BTA) - Since taking office a year ago, the Government and, respectively, the Road Infrastructure Agency, have given the go-ahead to road projects worth approximately 1,400 million leva and have contracted building and civil-engineering works for nearly 500 million leva, Bulgarian Regional Development and Public Works Minister Nikolay Nankov said here on Thursday.

He was speaking in Parliament at a hearing about the priority public project, initiated by GERB MPs. The hearing was broadcast live on National Television and National Radio.

All public procurement procedures that are conducted at the Ministry and at the Agency are "open to public scrutiny, transparent, and fully conform to the regulatory framework and good practices ensuring competitive market principles," Nankov said. As proof, he cited the large number of bidders in the procedures: for example, 28 tenders were submitted for a public procurement for the construction of the Zheleznitsa Tunnel on the Struma Motorway.

"The large number of candidates is evidence that work is going on under the floodlights and, of course, that the selection criteria for participants are not discriminatory and restrictive," the Public Works Minister pointed out. He was apparently referring to criticism levelled at the powerholders by President Rumen Radev in mid-April, when he said that "it is about time we turn on the floodlights and make sure that everything happens according to clear rules and public money is spent transparently."

Nankov noted that the number of appeals against public procurement awards has been exceedingly low during the last year or year and a half.