The quality of roads in the country continues to worsen. However, the approach to the used technologies, guarantee periods and monitoring of works remains the same. As a result, the public funds are not used efficiently, says an analysis carried out by the Center for Policies and Reforms whose authors travelled to localities where roads were renovated as part of the program “Good Roads for Moldova”, IPN reports.
The authors said the public funds are used to pay more, but to purchase less and of a poor quality and the quality of the performed works is not checked. Public finances are allocated without assessing the impact of the investment or ensuring the continuity of this. The implementation of contracts is not monitored appropriately. Asa result, the volume of executed works is lower than the contracted and paid volume. The deviations within the program can amount to tens of kilometers. The maximization of the social and economic impact is one of the main objectives of the public costs in the developed countries.
“Regrettably, it was established that the acquisitions as part of the “Good Roads” program didn’t pursue such objectives. The investments were made without estimating the economic and social impact, the money being distributed based on subjective criteria that weren’t made public. The same favored companies become winners of the public tender contests,” it is said in a press release.
According to the findings of the Center for Policies and Reforms, some of the repaired roads didn’t resist for at least a month. In some of the cases, the layer of asphalt was put on earlier asphalted sections or “islands” of 200 to 1,000 meters were built from asphalt on roads covered with gravel. In other cases, the thickness of the layer of asphalt was smaller than the one indicated in the tender documentation. Sections of roads became damaged shortly after being repaired, like in Hârbovăț village of Călărași district.
Almost 849 km of roads were repaired in the framework of the first stage of the “Good Roads” program in 2018. Another 2,600 km of roads are to be repaired in all the country’s districts in 2019.
