“The Regional Road Administration received a single offer that does not meet the tender conditions and is overpriced by roughly one billion over the maximum amount. The KSÚS will therefore exclude the interested party, and given that there will be no other entity left, the tendering procedure must be cancelled,” said Lukáš Nikl, Deputy Director of the Road Administration for Public Procurement, in the minutes of the Supervisory Board.
An association of eight original suppliers applied for a contract for road management worth over 2.6 billion crowns, to whom the region wanted to terminate the current not very favorable contracts, as is also written in the minutes of the supervisory board meeting.
Governor Petra Pecková (STAN) confirmed to Novinkám that the announced competition for summer and winter maintenance did not turn out as expected and the cost of roads would be significantly higher for the region.
“I consider the result, to put it mildly, not good. It is not for nothing that in the past we filed a complaint with the Office for the Protection of Economic Competition for suspicion of a cartel agreement between companies in the Central Bohemian Region. Now it turned out that the only offer came from an association of companies that are existing and that gave the tender price one billion higher than the maximum expected value of the contract determined according to market consultations,” said Pecková, according to whom it is a shame that the competition not reported by other market players or other large companies.
There were over six hundred inquiries about the tender, but in the end only one offer arrived, considerably overpriced. Based on the recommendations of the Supervisory Board of Road Administration and Maintenance, the regional leadership will probably decide on the next course of action on Thursday, October 10.
New own organization
Regional councilors should have several options on the table, how to continue to ensure road repairs and maintenance. It ranges from the extension of existing contracts through a new tender to the creation of your own organization.
“The most likely option is to cancel the tender and announce a new one. The existing contracts are valid until the end of March 2025, so this year’s winter maintenance should be ensured,” assured the governor. “It is an incentive to consider whether to completely change the road management and maintenance system,” she confirmed the possibility of a radical change. Furthermore, the region would not outsource services to private companies, but would create its own infrastructure, something like the technical services that cities have. “An organization of the Central Bohemian Region would be established so that those who will take care of the roads are employees of the region,” outlined Pecková.
“In order to create our own organization, we have to make an economic model, whether it would make economic sense, whether we could manage it financially, in terms of time and personnel, we are not that far yet,” pointed out Pecková.