Thursday, May 30 2019 14:43

ArmInfo. The Spanish Corsan Corviam Construccion S.A. company the contractor for the tranche-1 and tranche-2 for the construction of the North-South transport corridor,  received payment from the state for the work, however it did not  fulfill its obligations to 17 subcontractors.  Deputy Minister of  Transport, Communications and IT of Armenia Bagrat Badalyan stated  this on May 30 after a government meeting.

To note, today employees of 17 road-building companies that built  various sections of the North-South road corridor blocked the road  leading from Ashtarak to the village of Ujan (Aragatsotn region).  They demand to pay companies for the work done in the amount of 2  billion 49 million drams (from August to November last year).  According to the participants of the action, the company says that  the money must be paid by the government, while the government says  that it has already paid.

According to the deputy minister, the Spanish company has financial  difficulties and is at the stage of bankruptcy. It is noteworthy that  the company's financial difficulties did not appear today or  yesterday, for 2 years the general contractor of the first two  tranches has been in the process of bankruptcy.  Throughout 2018, the  company continued construction work, and the Armenian government  continued to pay money. And only this year there was a disagreement  with the company on a number of points - both in connection with the  terms and volumes of work, and the size of payments.

"Following the results of the new engineering measurements, it turned  out that we cannot pay them the amount they are counting on," he  said. The government of Armenia, as he pointed out, is trying to  resolve the issue through negotiations. Today it is already known  that construction work within Tranche-2 will not be completed on time  - by the end of July this year. Nevertheless, the Ministry of  Transport of Armenia does not want to terminate the contract with the  Spaniards and is ready to continue cooperation if the negotiations  "take place in a normal, constructive way." "If we terminate the  contract, then we will face a long arbitration process and we will  have to postpone work for several years," he explained.

To recall, in December 2018, the builders of the Ashtarak-Talin  section of the Tranche-2 North-South Investment Corridor had already  blocked the Yerevan-Talin highway, demanding the payment of wage  arrears, which, they said, they had not been given out since August .  In March of this year Head of the Ministry of Transport Hakob  Arshakyan said that the Spanish Corsan Corviam Construccion S.A.  company ought about 17 companies - subcontractors more than 1.5  billion drams.

The project to create a North-South transport corridor with a total  length of 556 km will allow access to the Black Sea and European  countries through Armenia  (Meghri-Kapan-Goris-Yerevan-Ashtarak-Gyumri- Bavra) and Georgia. The  investment program is aimed at providing communication of the north  (border with Georgia) and southern Armenia (border with Iran) through  transport communications that meet high international standards, and  access to world markets.

The Spanish Corsan Corviam won tenders for the construction of the  first few lines of the route, and the last tender (Lanjik-Gyumri  section in northern Armenia) was won by the Chinese Sinohydro  Corporation. With the latter, the Ministry of Transport and  Communications of Armenia signed a contract in May 2016 amounting to  about $ 60 million in the framework of the  tranche-3 of the  investment program. The Kajaran-Agarak project will be the fourth  section of the North-South project. Within the framework of the  project, it is planned to rebuild the arterial roads of Armenia from  the Iranian to the Georgian border.  Partially they will be rebuilt  from asphalt to concrete, partially expanded. And in some areas they  will build straight stretches instead of roundabout turns in the  mountains.

Construction of the corridor was planned to be completed in 2019.  Meanwhile, on September 4, 2017, at a meeting with journalists,  former Minister of Transport, Communications and Information  Technologies of the Republic of Armenia Ashot Hakobyan stated that  the implementation of the investment program for building the  North-South road corridor can take from 5 to 10 more years. According  to him, the timing of the project will depend on the financing, pace  and quality of the work. According to the former minister, the  construction will cost $ 2 billion, since only its southern section,  between the cities of Artashat and Meghri, according to preliminary  estimates, will cost about $ 1.5 billion. . 7 years ago, in September  2012, when the start of construction of the highway was announced,  the amount that representatives of the Armenian government called was  more than half as less - $ 962 million.