AYRIO THE CONCESSION IS SEALED
With the signing of the concession contract for Egnatia Odos, tomorrow Thursday, between the public and the joint venture GEK Terna (75%) – Egis Projects (25%), the way is opened for the financial closure of the agreement.
The Greek government will collect an amount of 1.4 billion. euros during the financial closure which is expected in the Autumn (the exact figure is related to the borrowing rate and has not yet been determined).
The signing of the 35-year contract is followed by its submission to Parliament for ratification. It is preceded by the issuance of a Joint Ministerial Decision (JMA) by the Ministers of Infrastructure and Transport and Finance for the increase of tolls on the highway that was built as a public project and will now be a concession contract.
Until today, its users pay lower tolls, compared to the rest of the highways. The MOU was signed yesterday and its publication in the Government Gazette is expected.
Toll increase
Based on the terms of the tender for the concession of the Egnatia Road, the tolls will initially increase from 3 cents today to 4 euro cents per kilometer.
On the rest of the country’s toll highways, the fee is set at 6.7 cents per kilometer. The Egnatia toll will increase a second time, from 4 to 5 cents per kilometer, after the concessionaire carries out certain works.
On the part of the concessionaire, the special purpose company “Nea Egnatia Odos” has been set up with a starting date of March 5, 2024 and the purpose of fulfilling the obligations and exercising the rights of the concession agreement.
With the increases approved by the Public Transport Authority, the route from Igoumenitsa to Alexandroupolis from the 38.40 euros it costs today will jump to 85.50 for a car in three years.
For vans, the cost rises from 130 to 300 euros, with all that this implies for transit and trade.
The projects undertaken by the GEK Terna – EGIS Projectis consortium
The announcement of the joint venture GEK Terna – EGIS Projects as the preferred investor for the concession of Egnatia Road by TAIPED took place in August 2021. That is, it took about 2.5 years to sign the contract.
The joint venture GEK Terna – Egis, in particular, will undertake the maintenance and operation of the 658 km long road axis, as well as the 3 vertical road axes with a total length of 225 km, which are connections of the Egnatia Road with the neighboring countries (Albania, North Macedonia and Bulgaria ). In addition, the contract provides that in the first years of the concession the consortium will proceed with a series of construction projects, including heavy maintenance of the road.
The new infrastructure projects
The construction subsidiary of GEK Terna Group, Terna will undertake all of the new infrastructure projects provided for in the contract (estimated at approximately 720 million euros during the first five years of studies – construction), all of the heavy maintenance projects of the highway and significant share of light maintenance and operation projects. It is estimated that the above technical object corresponds to a total of approximately 3 billion. euros during the concession period.
With its participation of 75% in the concession scheme, GEK Terna will consolidate according to IAS the total revenue of the concession, which based on the financial model is estimated at approximately 11.3 billion. euros during the concession period.
The District Governor will not attend
The Regional Governor of Epirus, Alexandros Kahrimanis, will not attend the signings for the concession of Egnatia Road at the event organized by TAIPED.
With his post, the District Governor announced his decision.
He even notes that the decision of the STE on the exemption from the payment of tolls in Malakasi, Drosochori and Tyria was never implemented.
He also mentions that the study of connecting Driscos with Egnatia Road was completed by the Region, but no approval was ever given by Egnatia for the project.
These are the reasons, at least the main ones, why he will not attend the Egnatia tradition.
The workers are on strike
The Egnatia Road Workers’ Association announces a strike for tomorrow and a protest demonstration in Thessaloniki, at the Ministry of Macedonia, at 12 noon, ahead of the signing of the Egnatia concession contract.
“This is a prescribed crime against the public interest and the public economy that started in 2011 and all governments put in stone after stone in order for us to reach, through the opaque procedures of TAIPED, to this point of signing a concession contract” says the association and refers again to the study which shows the doubling of the cost of tolls, for drivers, among other things.
He also mentions that he asked the Ministry of Infrastructure to designate “Egnatia Odos S.A.” as a supervisory body of the Egnatia Road concession contract due to the objective know-how of the project that it studied, built and operated, in order to represent the State in the given future claims of the concessionaire, “but the ministry did not accept a change of the relevant term of the contract before signing it ».
The association calls on all employees “to defend with us our fight to date and to claim new infrastructure items for the company of Northern Greece that designed, implemented and operates all these years a fixed 7 billion that was implemented with public money ».
#signatures #Egnatia #falling
2024-03-31 18:44:06