Fifth of donation for penalties - Railways of Serbia receives penalties of EUR 5,4 mil for Zezeljev most

The Spanish-Italian consortium Azvi Taddei Horta Coslada which is building the Zezelj's bridge in Novi Sad, delivered Railways of Serbia compensation payment requests of EUR 5,4 mil, Novosti reports. They are asking for penalties on the basis of operating costs, lost profit, delays in releasing withheld amounts and fee for payment deadlines delays. Otherwise, construction of the bridge is running late for a year and a half and it is not known when the job will be done.

New management of Serbian Railways has not made adequate decisions yet because teh situation with contractors is very complicated. All options for Serbian railways to protect its interest are being considered, even to submit compensation request to the Spanish- Italian consortium due to their mistakes in the previous period.

- Although there were legal basis in the previous two years for Serbian railways to submit compensation requests or even to terminate contract with the Spanish-Italian consortium, it has not been done, the source says for Novosti. "This is another project where the Railways of Serbia in the previous period, have been drastically damaged and according to General Manager's announcements, Dragoljub Simonovic, after completing documentation, the subject will be delivered to the police.

The consortium building the bridge, delivered a compensation request for the period before construction demanding extension of deadline for 248 days. Them, due to events during construction, they demanded another 325 days, which is 573, i.e. until June, 2015. DB International which contacted with the EU Delegation and acts as supervision, after all the analysis, accepted 103 extension and EUR 300.000 of expenses for the period before the construction started. The Supervisory institution estimated the works have been delayed due to fault of previous management in Serbian railways which did not carry out technical control of confirmation of works.

Delays in works

Construction works on the Zezeljev most (the Zezelj Bridge) should have started November 10, 2011 and the bridge should have been built exactly two years later. Due to delays in project development and provision of a statement for commencement of the works, the site was open April 19, 2012, with six months delay.

Although period before construction lasted six months longer than planned, at that moment, there was no agreement on extension of deadline and new dynamics so the works were carried out without a valid plan. Railway of Serbia could have terminated the contract with contractors even then.