July 16 (SeeNews) - Slovenia's state-owned motorway company, DARS, has extended the bidding deadline in a tender for the construction of Karavnke tunnel's second pipe to July 25 from July 11, local media reported.
DARS has informed the shortlisted bidders about the change, news daily Delo reported last week, quoting company information.
DARS had invited six qualified bidders to participate in the procedure - Turkey's Cengiz, a tie-in of Slovenia's Gorenjska Gradbena Druzba and Czech firm Metrostav, a consortium of Austria's Implenia Osterreich, Implenia Switzerland and local firm CGP Novo Mesto, a tie-in of Slovenia's Kolektor CGP, Riko and Turkey's Yapi Merkenzi Insaat ve Sanayi, a joint venture of Sarajevo-based Euro-Asfalt (EA) and Slovenia's CP Ptuj, and Greece's J&P Avax, the daily added.
Delo reports that the procedure for selecting a contractor has been long delayed due to complaints by interested bidders, most of them by Kolektor CGP and Gorenjska Gradbena Druzba, against DARS' decisions.
The two Slovenian firms claim that Turkey's Cengiz, which had submitted the lowest bid in the previous stage of the tender, does not meet the requirements for the job. They have also asked for an audit at DARS's dealings, saying it violated the public procurement procedures.
Slovenia's state audit commission has already established once that DARS has not violated the respective procedures, but it is now expected to come up again with a decision on a new complaint, the report said.
Back in March 2018, DARS said it received nine offers for the construction of Karavanke's eastern pipe, ranging from 89.3 million euro ($100.4 million) to 140.3 million euro, with Cengiz submitting the lowest bid.
The length of the eastern tube of the Karavanke tunnel through Slovenia, to the border with Austria, will be 3,546 m.
($=0.8898 euro)