ArmInfo. On the road sectionYerevan-Artashat transport corridor "North-South" found a crack.This was stated by the Minister of Transport, Communications and Information Technologies Vahan Martirosyan on July 13 after the meeting of the government, stressing that the service contract with the construction company of the Spanish "Corsan Corviam" was not completed due to which the Ministry of Transport demanded restoration.
Meanwhile, the Spanish company in Armenia, more precisely in road construction of the country, "became famous" for a long time. Back in July last year, former head of government Hovik Abrahamyan said that the Spanish construction company has become a real evil for the highway "North- South. "Abrahamyan said about the financial problems of the Spanish company and that the Ararat road is still" in the problems and made poor. "" There are some problems with this company and I do not know with whom: They say there is no money, They were just taken away, "Abrahamyan instructed, in addition to information in the media that because of the" Armenian traditional "corruption, the Spaniards are not able to carry out the construction of the North-South road, information has also appeared that against the Spanish organization
A criminal case was opened, which was confirmed in the Ministry of Finance ac ross. The Ministry reported that "on October 10th 2014. On the second part of the 205th article of the RA Criminal Code, a criminal case was instituted in connection with tax evasion on a particularly large scale by the Armenian branch of the joint-stock company Corsan Corviam. At the same time, the Ministry of Transport recorded deficiencies for which the Spanish company was fined $ 5.7 million. Now the works are being carried out according to the schedule. However, today the Minister of Transport assures that today the quality of work of the construction company does not cause censures. The other day the minister visited the Ashtarak- Tallinn section and did not note any criticism from both engineers and specialists from the Ministry and the BCP. "Works on the Yerevan-Ashtarak section will be completed in autumn 2017," Vahan Martirosyan assured.
It should be noted that on June 27 at the budget hearings in the parliament Gagik Grigoryan, the first deputy minister of transport, communications and information technologies of Armenia, stated that the North- South highway is ahead of schedule. According to him, instead of the planned 17.3 billion drams already used 24 billion drams. Work on the first tranche (Tranche 1), envisaged for the Yerevan-Artashat and Yerevan-Ashtarak sections is almost complete, on the route Ashtarak-Talin (Tranche 2) work is still under way. In the third section (Tranche 3) of Talin-Gyumri, excavation work is carried out and a trial laying of concrete is under way.
The construction of the highway "North-South" with a total length of 556 km will provide access to the Black Sea and European countries through the territory of Armenia (Meghri-Kapan-Goris-Yerevan- Ashtarak-Gyumri-Bavra) and Georgia.
The $ 1 billion investment program is aimed at securing the connection between the north (the border with Georgia) and southern Armenia (the border with Iran) through transport communications that meet high international standards and access to world markets. The road will be covered with concrete. To implement the project, Armenia raised a loan from the Asian Development Bank in the amount of $ 500 million. Another $ 150 million will be provided by the Eurasian Development Bank. The Armenian side also attracted 60 million euros from the European Investment Bank for the implementation of the project. The construction of the corridor is planned to be completed in 2019. Under the "North-South" program, the Armenian government calculated the preliminary savings of $ 2.5 per hour for each passenger and $ 1 per hour for transporting a ton of cargo. As the authorities of Armenia expect, the program will allow the country in the future to mitigate the consequences of the blockade on the part of Azerbaijan and Turkey, to play the role of a transit state in the freight transportation of the countries of the region, and also to join the Black Sea ring highway.
