EU cancels 2.7 million euro tender for road construction

TIRANA, April.14 – The European Union (EU) said it had cancelled an up to 2.7 million euro ($3.6 million) tender to hire a supervisor for the construction of a road in southern Albania, as the project was blocked by the country’s authorities. The tender, financed by the EU, was for providing supervision services for the construction of a road between Albania’s southern towns of Levan and Tepelene. The project was put on hold by the government in Tirana since July 2005 with a potential change of the original road alignment as official reason, the Tenders Electronic Daily, the supplement database to the EU’s Official Journal, said. “Should a new tender procedure be launched for this project, a new procurement notice will be published,” the EU said. The Levan-Tepelene project involves the construction of 37 kilometers of new road and the repair of 37 kilometers of existing road. The overhauled road was initially forecast to open in 2009 and its current traffic of 2,500 vehicles per day was expected to reach 5,250 a day in 2015.