GDDKiA to call 50 tenders in Poland worth combined €7.65 billion

The Polish road authority 1361 GDDKiA has approved the calling of 50 tenders for road construction projects worth a combined €7.65 billion (PLN 32bn). GDDKiA has decided to allow contractors to carry out changes in one half of the projects supplied by the authority, which will, it says, allow the relations between the investor and the contractor to become more efficient. However, it can also act as an encouragement of the building companies to save on quality. Work on the road construction projects being put up for tender is due to begin next year.

However all is not rosy within Poland’s road construction sector as a long running dispute appears to have re-emerged. Austrian contractor 1332 Alpine Bau has halted construction of a bridge that forms part of A1 highway between Sosnica and Gorzyczki. The dispute centres on a guarantee payment requested by GDDKiA but which the contractor claims has a major impact on its finances for the work. The disagreement over the payment has also opened a long running dispute that centres on the design of the bridge dating back to 2009. Alpine Bau previously refused to construct the bridge to the design set out by GDDKiA. According to the contractor, this design could be unsafe without further modifications. This earlier dispute saw Alpine Bau’s contract for the section of the highway taken away by GDDKiA over claims that deadlines had not been met, as well as the deadlock over the bridge design. Following the loss of the contract, GDDKiA and Alpine Bau started a complex legal battle. Once this had been settled between the two parties, the construction firm was able to restart work. Now it appears that the dispute over the bridge design, a focal point of the earlier disagreement, has not been fully settled.