| Work Detail |
It does so in the absence of agreement with the companies involved. The legacy of the former Macri minister. The official letter of breaches of contracts.
In the absence of agreement with the construction companies involved to face an orderly exit, the administration decided to put first and move forward with the termination of the road concessions that had been awarded in the Macrista era under the Public Private Participation (PPP) scheme.
Almost two months after issuing the first signals aimed at deactivating PPP contracts on the main national highways and highways, the Ministry of Public Works confirmed the launch of the administrative and legal process to withdraw the controversial concessions inherited from the previous government. .
The decision was reflected in two official notes that bear the signatures of the head of the portfolio, Gabriel Katopodis, and the administrator of National Roads, Gustavo Arrieta.
In the first one - dated on July 14 - the Minister of Public Works communicated to the head of Roads that "there are no objections to continuing the process of evaluating the different grounds for termination that end PPP contracts."
A day later and with that ministerial endorsement, Arrieta signed on July 15 the second note, which orders the managers of Planning and Concessions, Gerardo Marisa Fassi
Tarchinale, and of Legal Affairs, Juan Manuel Prada, "to initiate work meetings with the concessionaires in order to put an end to the PPP contracts in the most beneficial conditions for the general interest".
The process of reestatizing the countrys busiest highway corridors would formally start these days, once the five concession groups are notified of the official decision.
Until now, the construction companies in charge of the concessions have been holding meetings with Public Works officials with the idea that it was possible to reach an understanding to continue operating the routes with a contractual modification that would leave the collection of tolls in their hands and carrying out the most important works.
The official decision to accelerate the rescission of the PPP will force companies to review their strategies and assess the pros and cons they would have if they decide to bring the dispute with the government to the judicial arena.
The road concessions at stake had started in mid-2018 and contemplated the execution of a comprehensive program of works and improvements of around $ 6 billion. The investments were to be financed by private companies and banks and then repaid with government debt securities that would be rescued every six months.
The road PPPs were in the hands of the companies Paolini and Vial Agro (Corridor A), Green and the Chinese group CCA (Corridor B); Cartellone (Corridor C), Helport, Panedile, Eleprint and Copasa (E and F) and Rovella Carranza, JCR and Mota-Engil (Corridor South).
Shortly after starting, the concessionaires had to face the exchange and economic crisis that led the Mauricio Macri government to ask for the IMFs help in closing all external sources of financing.
To this was added an unexpected judicial setback: most of the companies that make up the consortia were involved in the well-known cause of corruption of the “notebooks” carried out by former federal judge Claudio Bonadío.
Without the possibility of obtaining the financing they had promised and with marked delays in the works, the road PPPs were kept standing by former Transport Minister Guillermo Dietrich with extensions and modifications in the rules of the game of dubious legality.
A few days after taking office, Katopodis announced the completion of an audit that in 90 days had to define the continuity or not of the concessions. That assessment, which was delayed by the emergence of the coronavirus, re-emerged in late May, following a court ruling that allowed Helport and its partners Panedile, Eleprint and Copasa to replace the current dollar guarantees in the surety contracts. in pesos.
At that time, the Public Works authorities went out to intimate all the concessionaires so that in 30 working days, "under the warning of termination of the contract due to the fault of the contractor", they complied with the update of the guarantees that was pending since last year .
Guarantees in dance are the nerve center of road concessions. They amount to a total of almost 570 million dollars that the concessionaires want to rescue without any deduction or penalty from the Government. In the last meetings with officials, the companies stated that they were willing to give up PPP contracts if they returned the guarantees and a compensation of $ 20 million for each concessionaire for the financial costs they had faced since 2018 with the banks for maintenance of guarantees.
The strong card that the Government has are the delays and the marked contractual breaches that the concessionaires accumulate. In the two years that the concessions are in force, only between 2% and 4% of the main works that were committed in the different corridors were completed.
The termination of the PPP will not imply the end of the toll stations. They will remain, in principle, in the hands of the state-run Corredores Viales SA (CVSA), which would continue to charge the rates set by the Public Works authorities.
Led by AUBASA extitular Gonzalo Atanasoff, Corredores Viales is the company that took over from January all the routes that were not part of the PPP. In total, it operates almost 3,000 kilometers on different sections of highway 19 and national routes 8, 9, 12, 16, 34, 36 and 188.
CVSA, which had been created by former Minister Dietrich, became the target of a strong questioning by the Association of Professionals and Senior Road Staff for the overlapping functions it has with Road and its high operating and salary costs. |
