Minister of Infrastructure and Regional Development Andrei Spînu said that the Public Property Agency is in charge of organizing the tender contest for the rental of commercial spaces at the Chisinau International Airport. He noted that he has nothing to do with the failure of the tender contests at the Airport and that he has never met with representatives of the company that submitted bids in the first tender contests, IPN reports.
Andrei Spînu said that the third tender contest to rent out commercial spaces at the Airport will be relaunched after Parliament repeatedly adopted amendments on the extension of rental of commercial spaces. He categorically denied any affinity with Lagardere company, which is the only one willing to run businesses inside the Chisinau International Airport.
“The procedure is handled by the Public Property Agency together with the Airport. The director of the PPA informed that a new tender contest will be announced in the immediate period. The third tender contest was not canceled, but it was a problem related to a law. The Constitutional Court declared an article on the procedure unconstitutional. Now that article was revoted according to the decision of the Constitutional Court and the procedure with tender contest No. 3 will be resumed. There are regulations on the organization of tender contests. If only one participates, the period is extended. If a number of bidders do not apply after this, direct negotiations are held. But this is the process organized by the PPA. I heard so much dirt and lies about the fact that I have some relations with particular companies that I haven’t even met. I don’t even know who they are,” Andrei Spînu stated in the talk show “The Shadow Cabinet” on JurnalTV channel.
In the same connection, the official noted that for now it is not clear how the state will manage the Chisinau International Airport. Following the feasibility study carried out with the support of the World Bank, it will be decided whether or not the airport will be handed over to a foreign investor.
“We are preparing the process of initiating the feasibility study for the development of the Airport. We expect this study to provide answers to such questions as: How big should the new terminal be? How many tracks are needed? What is the passenger capacity processed? How big should the parking lot be? What will be the payback period? Is it better to have a public-private partnership, to have an administration partner? There are many questions and the role of this feasibility study is to provide answers,” explained Andrei Spînu.
For several months, the state has been trying to hold tender contests to lease out commercial spaces at the Airport. After three failed attempts, on Thursday the head of the Airport’s press service Natalia Cojocaru announced that the third tender contest that was previously stopped will be relaunched.
