The Press and PR Department of the Ministry of PEHODE proceeded to the following statement with regard to the progress in the tender concerning the construction of the Thessaloniki Metro:
The Ministry of PEHODE gave priority to the Tender of the complicated major project of the Thessaloniki Metro, thus adhering to the regulations of the European and Greek Law.
The time schedule was strictly observed and on August 19th the temporary contractor was appointed.The few month delay is due to the legal but dilatory method of the construction companies to have recourse to all directions in order to promote their business interests. High competition was achieved and the cost of construction per km is 15% lower in comparison to the Athens Metro.
The total of the objections and appeals has been examined by the Awarding Authority and the Greek Courts. Until the present day, eight relevant petitions have been rejected by the Greek Courts and it is expected that the three final decisions will be issued by the First Instance Court of Athens in the following weeks.
With regard to the denunciations issued to the General Directorate for Competition of the European Commission it is pointed out that the routine procedure -during which the European Commission informs ATTIKO METRO S.A. on the allegations of the complainants- has been initiated (in no case does it adopt them) and requests some clarifications, in order to express a final opinion on the issue. On the Ministry of PEHODE own initiative, these denunciations are examined on a priority basis and the relevant resolution of the European Commission is anticipated to be issued by the end of this year.
We wish to point out that there is no intention to put this project to tender again. In fact, the Ministry of PEHODE sees to have this procedure completed the soonest possible and then proceed to the conclusion of the contract.
Moreover, it is not possible that an ordinary procedure of filing objections, which is common in such major projects, to be interpreted as a “danger to put the project to tender again”.
We reiterate that the tender was completed in transparency adhering to the regulation of European and Greek Law and we believe that there will be an outcome soon.
