Bulgaria’s Commission for Protection of Competition (CPC) is yet to issue a final decision on the complaints over the “Trakiya” highway public tender, Regional Minister, Rosen Plevneliev said Wednesday.

CPC has only rejected the requests of the Austrian road construction consortium "Strabag" and the Greek builder “Terna” to block the public tender procedure, but there is a legal 2-month deadline to probe the complaints, the Commission informed to clarify the issue. In addition, CPC reports that any of their decisions can be appealed before the Supreme Administrative Court.

It has been already officially announced that the complaints have been rejected, and the latest information means the signing of the contract to build Lot 2 - the Stara Zagora – Nova Zagora section - of the highway might be delayed for an undetermined period of time.

According to the current Public Tenders Act, the Road Infrastructure Agency can sign the contract with the selected company, despite the complaint, but such outcome is not likely.

In the beginning of February it was announced that the lower bid was submitted by the "Bulgarian Trace Group Hold", owned by businessman Nikolay Mihaylov. Subsidiaries include "PSI", "SK13 Holding", "Viastroy Engineering" and "Road Construction - Dobrich".

The group's proposed cost for the project was almost three times lower than the highest offer received, at EUR 2,2 M per kilometer, while in 2005-2007 it had built the section from Orizovo to Stara Zagora for EUR 2,4 M per km. Because of the low price submitted, the company will be asked for additional justification, said chairman of the selection committee Dimitar Margaritov.

“Terna” and “Strabag” already filed two complaints with CPC.

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