Bulgarian Cabinet allocates 483M leva for Hemus Motorway construction
Bulgaria’s Government decided on December 11 to allocate 483 million leva, or about 247 million euro, to the regional development ministry’s 2019 budget for future construction work on Hemus Motorway in the north of the country, which links capital city Sofia to the Black Sea port of Varna.
In a statement, the Cabinet said that it was committed to allocate a total of 1.38 billion leva for the final 89km stretch of the motorway, which included the funding approved on December 11.
This is separate from the 1.35 billion leva allocated last year for the construction of a different 134.2km stretch of the motorway.
The final 89km have been split into three sections, to be built by state-owned construction company Avtomagistrali, rather than private contractors picked in public procurement tenders, which has been criticised in some quarters as lacking transparency.
The funds released on December 11 will be used by the Regional Development Ministry on future payments for work on those three sections, the Cabinet’s media office said.
Separately, the Cabinet has approved 280 million for payments on construction and repair works on Bulgarian roads, carried out in 2019. Of that amount, 27.1 million leva were allocated to two stretches of the Hemus Motorway.
(Photo of Hemus Motorway section under construction in 2018: Bulgarian Road Infrastructure Agency)
