More than 900 km of local and national roads are to be repaired within the Roads 2020 program. The tender contests to choose contractors will end in June and the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure plans to start the repair works during the first week of July, IPN reports.
In a press briefing, secretary of state at the Ministry of Economy Anatol Usatyi said the program is implemented for the third consecutive year after during the last 30 years the roads haven’t been practically maintained. Starting with 2017, amendments have been made to the legislation and 50% of the road toll is now transferred to the mayor’s offices. About 400 million lei is thus annually transferred to local public authorities. Additionally, the Government allocates funds for performing repair works inside localities. This year, the total budget was planned at 1.2 billion lei.
The allocations are determined depending on the number of inhabitants of the locality. The roads that are to be rehabilitated are decided by the local authorities, but these should ensure connection with schools, kindergartens, hospitals, etc.
The local public authorities are those that decide the type of layer on the road. Of the over 900 km of roads, 300 km will be asphalted, while over 600 km will be flattened, in a white variant. Anatol Usatyi said that it is not easy for the local authorities to choose the type of road when the financial resources are limited. The mayor’s offices here can choose between making 0.5 km of asphalted road or 3 km of road in a white variant.
Repair works will be executed in 1,200 localities in total. Bids can be submitted between June 22 and June 30.
According to the Ministry of Economy and Infrastructure, the public roads exceed 10,000 km in length. 6,000 km of national and regional roads are managed by the Ministry through the State Road Administration, while 4,000 km are local roads maintained by district councils.
