A 415-kilometer highway contract signed ten years ago, 52 kilometers finalized, and a EUR 1.4 billion bill, out of a EUR 2.2 billion contract. This is in short the lowdown for the contract between the Romanian state and American highways builder Bechtel, and the highway is the Transylvania highway, which, according to previous plans, should have been finalized in 2012.

Romania recently finalized negotiations with Bechtel to cancel the contract, and to do so the country still has to pay EUR 37.2 million, which represents the amount still due for work Bechtel has done.

After all the formalities will be done, the contract, signed in 2003 when Adrian Nastase was a Prime Minister, will become public.

Dan Sova, the minister delegate for infrastructure projects said the previous minister in charge of transports, Anca Boagiu, left a EUR 50 million debt towards Bechtel, and before canceling the contract, that debt had to be paid. The next steps will be to give the highway project under concession, and then actually build it.

The Transylvania highway contract has had hiccups soon after work started. After the contract was signed in 2003, in 2004 work started, but in 2005 the contract was changed and work was halted. Then the authorities started to re-analyze all contracts previously signed. Work then continued on certain segments of the highway, and in the end only 52 kilometers were built. Much of the amounts Romania had to pay were in fact penalties, which resulted from the 2003 contract, which , according to pundits, was favorable to the American builder and had Romania at a big disadvantage.

editor@romania-insider.com