TIRANA, Feb. 26 – The Albanian government has announced a pre-qualification tender for a 30-year concession of the Milot-Morine highway section linking Albania to Kosovo which is set to become the country’s first toll road.
In an announcement made by the Public Procurement Agency, the Transport and Infrastructure Ministry invites companies to submit their pre-qualification bids to upgrade, operate and maintain the 114 km Milot-Morine segment until March 23, 2015.
“The main objective of this works and services concession/public-private partnership project is upgrading the highway and its effective operation and maintenance. The concessionaire will be subject to a set of predefined performance standards over a 30-year concession term,” says the tender announcement.
“The concessionaire will collect and keep toll revenue and in exchange it will be responsible to implement and finance motorway improvement measures, construct a new bridge on Drini River in Kukes, northeastern Albania and carry out emergency geotechnical and stabilization works, says the transport and infrastructure ministry.
Prequalified bidders will be required to submit a bid security of Euro 250,000.
The highway is part of the national roads network and constitutes the largest road engineering project in Albania’s history. Linking Milot, approximately 60 km northeast of the Adriatic Port of Durres, with Morine at the Kosovo border, the route forms the central section of the wider Albania-Kosovo highway, connecting Durres with the Kosovo capital Prishtina.
Euro 5 toll to be introduced
In a recent interview for Kosovapress new agency, Albanian Transport Minister Edmond Haxhinasto said the toll for the Albania-Kosovo highway will be at around 5 euros VAT included. “We are mulling over a Euro 5 toll VAT included and I believe this tariff is below the region’s average,” said Haxhinasto.
The Kosovo government is also planning to introduce tolls for its highway to Albania which is expected to make travel to the two neighbouring countries much more expensive.
The Albanian government says it plans to extend the toll system in other road segments in order to guarantee maintenance and standards and cut its budget costs.
The concession which now seems on track had been delayed for a couple of years because of lack of legal framework for toll roads, which were approved only in mid-2014.
“We are examining to build some road segments under public private partnerships. The state budget cannot afford works such as the Durres-Kukes highway which needs another $200 million,” said Economy Minister Arben Ahmetaj last July introducing the bill which targets public-private partnerships on the construction and maintenance of roads due to rising costs.
In early 2012, five companies were prequalified to submit bids to upgrade, operate and maintain the Milot-Morine segment of the Durres-Kukes highway but the tender was postponed due to general elections of 2013.
Operational since June 2009, the Durres-Kukes highway and its 5.5 km twin-bore Thirre tunnel is estimated to cost government around 4 million euros annually in maintenance.
The concession was initially scheduled to cover a 118 km segment from Milot to Morine, the major part of the Durres-Kukes nicknamed the ‘Highway of Nation’ also including the 5.5 km Rreshen-Kalimash tunnel.
“Road tolling offers the possibility of raising additional revenue for the road sector, and provides a dedicated source of finance for a particular road. Revenue from tolling is also independent from the annual budgetary process, and therefore increases the stability of road sector revenues, though toll revenues remain exposed to traffic risk,” says London-Based EBRD which is supporting the Albanian government in the reform of the road sector.
The Durres-Kukes highway, which is estimated to have cost Albania a staggering Euro 1 billion became fully open to traffic only in October 2010. Its major 60 km Rreshen-Kalimash segment was built by Bechtel-Enka, a US-Turkish consortium.
Kosovo has also completed its part of the Highway of Nation linking its capital Prishtina to the Morine border crossing point with Albania
