August 8 (SeeNews) - Bulgaria's government said it decided to allocate an additional co-financing of 116.4 million levs ($66.7 million/ 59.5 million euro) to an EU-funded project for an upgrade of the Kostenets-Septemvri railway line which has been delayed for more than two years.
Тhe project, financed from the EU's Operational Programme Transport and Transport Infrastructure (OPTTI) 2014-2020, has been halted several times by appeals submitted by unsuccessful bidders in the tender for the contract, delaying works and thus putting the EU funding at risk, the government said in a statement on Wednesday.
The government's decision will secure the comprehensive overhaul of the Kostenets-Septemvri section, part of the railway line connecting Sofia to the country's second biggest city of Plovdiv, a major industrial, transport and logistics hub in southern Bulgaria. The Sofia–Plovdiv railway line is an important element of the Trans-European Transport Core network corridors.
The National Railway Infrastructure Company opened the tender with an estimated value of 361.5 million levs in July 2017. The deadline for submitting offers has been extended three times following temporary suspensions due to complaints filed with Bulgaria's competition authority.
Last year, Galina Vasileva, head of the managing authority of OPTTI 2014 - 2020, said that systematic appeals of tender procedures for railway projects financed under the programme causes risks of losing EU financing, therefore amendments to the Public Procurement Act are urgently needed.
(1 euro = 1.95583 levs)