Builders have sought BGN 140 M in additional funding and more time to complete the construction of several motorway sections in Bulgaria next year, a government official has said.

According to caretaker Deputy Prime Minister Ekaterina Zaharieva, who is also caretaker Regional Development Minister, no new motorway sections will open in Bulgaria by the end of 2014.

The interim government, appointed earlier this month to prepare snap elections in October, is faced with a higher-than-planned budget deficit and will hardly be able to provide additional funding to the Bulgarian and foreign companies that are building the highways.

Zaharieva’s predecessor at the Regional Development Ministry Desislava Terzieva had claimed until the end of her tenure that Maritza motorway and the 15-kilometre stretch of the Struma motorway from Sandanski to Bulgaria’s border with Greece will be built by the end of 2014.

The construction of two sections of Maritza motorway, which should have been built by the end of 2013, has been delayed by archaeological excavations along the planned route of the future motorway.

Construction works on Struma motorway have been delayed by slow land appropriation and issuance of building permits and the emergence of utility infrastructure networks not shown on cadastral maps.

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