Almost 1.5bn lei to be invested in road rehabilitation

The Government is to shortly approve the road rehabilitation program for 2011. A sum of about 1.5 billion lei will be invested in road rehabilitation this year, Deputy Minister of Transport and Road Infrastructure Boris Gherasim said in an interview, quoted by Info-Prim Neo. According to the official, 788 million lei was planned in the road fund; 100 million lei will be allocated from the state budget revenues earmarked for capital investment for finishing the works on the Orhei – Rezina road (of the 250 million lei needed); 450 million lei will be disbursed on the basis of contracts signed with EBRD, EIB, the European Commission and other foreign backers. There are also other kinds of financing and grants. The deputy minister said the financing volume is much larger than the previous years, but insufficient to cope with all the necessities. “3 billion lei will be allocated in 2012 for rehabilitating the road infrastructure. The next years the sum will rise to 4 billion lei. This sum will enable to repair all the national and local roads during 10 years,” said Boris Gherasim. According to him, the road repair works have not been interrupted in winter. “The roads were stopped up, the drainage channels cleaned and the trees trimmed. When the weather permits, stopping up works will start on the national roads,” the deputy minister stated. Boris Gherasim also said that about 100 sections of local roads that connect the settlements with the national roads will be repaired this year. They are 2, 4 and 6 km long and are practically impassable. The works will be performed with the assistance of the local public authorities.