Tirana-Elbasan tunnel winner ready to be unveiled

TIRANA, March 7 – Only 7 of the 13 international companies interested in building the tunnel of the new Tirana-Elbasan highway have submitted electronic bids, the Transport Ministry said last week after concluding the tender’s second stage. Without giving concrete details, the ministry said all the submitted bids were lower than the initial 150 million dollar price tag set for the completion the highway tunnel.
Describing tender procedures as transparent, Transport Minister Sokol Olldashi said the submitted bids were favourable and varied from 54 to 81 percent of the price tag.
“Within two weeks we will finally have the winner of this procedure which is the most important currently being carried out in the country’s infrastructure,” said Olldashi.
Prime Minister Sali Berisha said later this week construction works would start next April.
Sources quoted by local media said the lowest bid was submitted by Greece’s Aktor. The remaining seven companies in the bid include the Bechtel-Enka consortium which last year successfully completed the Rreshen-Kalimash highway including a giant tunnel linking Albania to Kosovo, three Greek companies, and three other companies from Italy, Croatia and Slovenia.
The tunnel is expected to be completed within 18 months once the contract has been signed and possibly open to traffic within 2012. The Tirana-Elbasan highway will be the first segment of southern road axis and an important hub of the Corridor 8 project with Italy, Macedonia and Bulgaria. The highway, expected to cut the distance to Elbasan to 31 kilometres, down from 48 currently, will have four lanes and two tunnels, 2.3 and 2.1 km long each, saving passengers to the central Albanian city of Elbasan 40 minutes compared to the current mountainous road.
The Islamic Development Bank (IDB) approved last week 222.7 million dollars to finance the Tirana-Elbasan highway, according to the Qatar News Agency.