At the end of October the consortium Slovenske Dialnice was fined EUR 10 million by the Ministry of Transport for failing to arrange its side of the finances in the PPP project for five sections of the D1 motorway. It still hasn’t settled the fine, which is now overdue.
The consortium is refusing to accept responsibility for the fine, as it claims that the project got stuck in the mud over the European Commission’s environmental impact concerns about the planned route, which held up the release of funds by investing banks.
At the end of August the Ministry of Transport cancelled the contract with the consortium, which includes two major Slovak construction companies Doprastav and Vahostav, but the ministry is also still waiting on the delivery of documentation, which is necessary for the state to take over the sites and keep work moving.
This might be a problem because, unusually, the contract contains no clause on how this handover process should transpire or what to do if contractual relations cease.