Bulgaria's PM Vows for Regular Checks on Lyulin Highway

90% of the Lyulin Highway must be ready by the end of 2010. Photo by BGNES

Bulgaria’s PM Boyko Borisov has announced that he was skeptical that the Lyulin Highway will be finished by the end of the year and promised to make checks every 20 days.

“I do not know how it will happen, but I am firm about the quality,” Borisov said Friday after he inspected the road junction of the highway in the Sofia district ‘Lyulin” and the tunnels, located 7 km after the junction.

The 19-km Lyulin Highway is supposed to become Bulgaria’s first completed highway. It will connect the capital Sofia with the Daskalovo road junction near Pernik, and thus, with the Struma Highway leading to the Greek border and Sofia-Nis Highway leading into Serbia.

The Lyulin Highway was supposed to have been completed by 2010 but after a number of issues with the work of the Turkish company executing the project Mapa Cengiz, the Bulgarian authorities agreed to renegotiate the contract by providing substantial additional funds and setting May 15, 2011, as the deadline for the opening of the new road.

The Mapa Cengiz representative has promised to provide more equipment and to speed up the construction in days.On the other hand, Borisov promised to check the construction work every 20 days.

The Bulgarian PM has pointed out that the funding for the highway has been provided and that the executive company has promised to finish in the agreed time frame.

According to the new reports, the construction of the Lyulin Highway has been delayed with two months, but the company could catch up.

“Unlike the previous government, now we follow the construction works from the first day. Today deputy ministers will inspect the Trakiya highway,” Borisov said.

One of the trucks, equipped to assess the quality of the asphalt, has already arrived at the constructions site.

“The consultant for the project has received BGN 12 M, but has not done work for BGN 1,” Borisov said, explaining that at some places the Lyulin Highway goes up to 6-7 m, which prevention would have saved more money, in Borisov’s words.

He also noted that the same company has consulted the work on the Struma Highway.

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