Lucia Salinas
10/18/2020 5:33 PM
Clarín.com
Politics
Updated 10/18/2020 5:46 PM
The first time the work was put out to tender was on September 28, 2006. Organized in three sections, in that tender as in each opening of envelopes,
only companies from the same holding company participated, the Austral Group
owned by Lázaro Báez.
Since then, the work has never been completed and the Justice described it as
an "emblem of corruption",
determining that with an average advance of 37%
the surcharge paid was around 300%.
The work was terminated in 2016 by the government of Cambiemos and CPC SA of Cristóbal López was imposed in the price check.
He ran the same luck: an advance that did not exceed 5% and the award was canceled.
Now, the current management of Alberto Fernández will re-float the project that has been bidding for more than 12 years and its value could well exceed $ 2 billion.
The first time it was tendered for more than $ 674 million.
Route 3, one of the main corridors in the country, has had a section in a dilapidated state
for more than twelve years.
It is the work that covers a total of 66 kilometers and connects the north of Santa Cruz with the south of Chubut.
This road connects to the oil pole of both districts that in turn share the San Jorge Gulf.
Pickup trucks, trucks, all kinds of vehicles linked to the hydrocarbon activity pass through there, the heart of the two provinces.
That is why this section of the route is so important.
Its relevance is no less: it has more than 7,000 vehicles per day, 30% of which are trucks with heavy oil machinery.
The rest are cars that many travel daily between the two cities.
There it circulates through cornices and crosses roads with an aggravating circumstance, there are constantly crosswinds of more than 50 km / h in that area.
The fact that the work has not been completed, taking into account these factors, has generated multiple accidents, most of them with fatalities.
A view of the abandoned work of National Route 3 in the Santa Cruz Province that neither Lázaro Báez nor Cristóbal López completed.
Photo Emmanuel Fernandez.
The project was born under the government of Néstor Kirchner,
responsible for launching the first tender in 2006,
the other two sections were awarded during the presidency of Cristina Kirchner.
The winner in all instances was the same: Lázaro Báez.
This work has been included in the budget of the National Highway Administration (DVN) for fourteen years and it was never completed.
The work that includes three sections on National Route 3, known as the Caleta Olivia - Comodoro Rivadavia Highway, was the first that the Macrista government terminated the head of Austral Construcciones.
The original project had a cost of $ 674 million and with an average completion of 37%,
the Government of Cristina Kirchner ended up paying two construction companies in Lázaro Báez $ 2,892 million: 329% more.
The calculation made then, was that if the work continued in the hands of the Austral Group - favored with 11.4% of the general highway budget for the last twelve years - it would end up costing $ 3,000 million, due to the redetermination of its applied costs.
Cristóbal López also kept part of the work on National Route 3 in the Santa Cruz Province, but made no progress.
Photos Emmanuel Fernandez.
Then, National Highway called a public tender with a global cost of $ 1,964 million.
On the payroll of the companies that offered, CPC, owned by Cristóbal López, with a budget of $ 1,569,507,193, one of the lowest values, which positioned it first in the bidders ranking and ended up winning the work.
But in 2018, the DVN determined that in the hands of CPC, the work was 3% complete, and they
decided to terminate the work for Cristóbal López.
The main argument was for “abandonment of work” and fines for breaches of deadlines for more than $ 35.7 million were deducted from the work certifications, corresponding only to the Comodoro Rivadavia - Caleta Olivia section.
The aim was to prevent the cost of the work from exceeding $ 3,000 million.
It is still unfinished.
The current management of Alberto Fernández is going to re-tender this contract along with 269 others,
which according to official information were detained when he took office and in which there was a debt of 18,600 million pesos, "which represents 21% of the total of the annual expenditures of the National Highway, "official sources explained to Clarín.
Thus, they will also carry out a new price check in three sections to finally conclude with a work tendered more than fourteen years ago.
The amount for which the work will be relaunched has not yet been made official, but according to the calculations that must take into account annual inflation, the costs of the stopped work will far exceed $ 2,000 million, “it has been on hold for two years and that makes reactivation more expensive , plus maintenance, inflation, "government sources told
Clarín.
This contract is one of the 51 bids investigated in the trial against Cristina Kirchner, accused of having favored Lázaro Báez with contracts "irregularly," according to the Justice.