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Management and maintenance will be transferred with the idea of ??“reducing the deficit”. The Rosario-Victoria bridge is put out to tender again
Nation launched a new Federal Road Network system
, in which 12 sections of national routes will pass into private hands.
In the midst of efforts already undertaken by the provincial government to take over sections of national routes that pass through Santa Fe to take charge of their operation, the administration of Javier Milei launched a new concession system for the management and maintenance of the entire map of routes in the country through a new Federal Road Network. In this way, the Nation will pass this responsibility to the private sector "in order to reduce the deficit, make spending transparent and balance the accounts." In the region, the "Río Paraná" section will be more than a thousand kilometers long and involves routes 8 (which passes through Venado Tuerto), 9 (in the sector of the highway to Buenos Aires), 33 (from Rosario to Rufino) and Avenida de Circunvalación, among others.
What is unusual is that the current administration has put an end to the state-owned company that managed a large part of the countrys road network. In fact, Corredores Viales has an expiration date and the government argued its dissolution was due to the high deficit rate it had suffered since the previous government.
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Routes in sections
In this way, the preparation and publication of the concession documents for the 12 sections into which the national route map will be divided is awaited. The region will be impacted by the "Río Paraná" section, which, strictly speaking, will involve the provinces of San Luis, Santa Fe, Córdoba, and Buenos Aires, and affects segments of routes 8, 9 (Rosario-Buenos Aires highway) and 33, 35, 36, 188, 193, A005 and the Rosario Ring Road.
In another section, the "connection" section will be put out to tender; that is, the almost 60 kilometers of route 174; that is, the new one called for the Rosario-Victoria bridge, currently in the hands of Caminos del Uruguay.
Thus, through the Bases law, the transfer of management, operation and maintenance of national routes under concession to the private sector will be launched, which is currently mostly in the hands of Corredores Viales SA, created in 2017 to manage the routes that had been under concession in the 1990s.
The government argued in a press release that the state-owned company "has failed to meet minimum operation and maintenance standards, with deficits despite the tariff increases made. That is why, until December 2023, the debts were covered with funds from the National Treasury, distorting the purpose of the toll, which is to autonomously finance the operation and maintenance of the routes."
Under this justification and to "guarantee the sustainability of the road network," the national State will call for a national and international public tender open to all actors who meet the required guarantees. "This new scheme promotes greater competition since it allows the participation of companies that do not necessarily belong to the road construction sector, generating greater transparency and confidence in the private sector," was clarified in the press release.
Nation in two stages
Regarding the bidding process, the Casa Rosada plans to carry it out in two stages: first, sections whose concessions expire on April 9 and involve national routes 12 and 14, the Rosario-Victoria Bridge (174), and cross the provinces of Buenos Aires, Entre Ríos, Santa Fe and Corrientes. The call for this stage will be launched in December 2024, with the award and taking possession scheduled for April 2025.
While the second stage will involve the concession of 5,513 kilometers of routes currently managed by Corredores Viales SA, adding other routes that until now were not under concession, such as route 33 in Santa Fe (in the hands of Vialidad Nacional), route 18 in Entre Ríos, and the variant of route 19 in Córdoba.
This is the largest package, which will be divided into ten sections. In total, 8,648 kilometres will be put out to tender, distributed in twelve sections that represent 20% of the national road network, but concentrate 80% of the traffic. The call for tenders for this second stage will be made in February 2025, with the award scheduled for July 2025.
The new rules of the game include the requirement that concessionaires will only be able to collect toll fees once the entire concessioned route is in safe conditions for transit. Only then will they be able to recover their investment. The new system will ensure that most of the revenue is used for maintenance and construction "by reducing the cost of intermediaries," the national government said.
Santa Fe took the lead
A few days ago, La Capital published another saga of the enormous efforts of the provincial government before the Nation to be granted powers in various sections of national routes. The idea is to move forward with a plan for improvement and maintenance. And, through the Legislature, sections can be transferred to private companies to manage them. For now, the Santa Fe administration has planned an agreement for the National Highway Administration to give the provincial administration strategic kilometers in port areas.
The aim was to develop Route 11, Route 33 from Rufino to Rosario and the second ring road that surrounds the metropolitan area: the A012, essential for the arrival of trucks to the port complex in the Rosario area, where it is planned to operate the road layout as a single zone, with a tonnage fee, eliminating the rates charged by some municipalities in the industrial belt. With Route 33 included in the Río Paraná section, Route 11 and Route A012 would remain on Santa Fes radar, in an expectation of a network of about a thousand kilometers to be repaired.
Casa Gris insists: "We were a pioneering province in requesting national routes for concession. We did not take a national position, because we have been fighting for this for months." |
