As if the acute housing crisis in which the country is facing is not enough, the contractors are now also warning about the infrastructure crisis.
The war between Russia and Ukraine and the corona crisis led to a sharp increase in the price of raw materials, and the contractors are angry that the state does not participate in financing the additional costs of public projects - the construction of infrastructure (for example, roads and paths) as well as the construction of public buildings such as schools and offices.
This coming Sunday, the contractors' association intends to demonstrate in the morning in front of the government building in Tel Aviv and call for the government's intervention.
According to the contractors, this reality led to the closure of businesses in the construction industry.
According to data from the coface BDI company, in 2021 609 contractors were "cut off" - 505 construction contractors and 104 infrastructure contractors.
The company predicts that in the years 2022-2023 this number will continue to grow and will reach 640 and 680 respectively, an all-time high.
"In fact, this is a much more serious crisis than the housing crisis. When you wait six months in line for an MRI or when patients are lying in the corridors of hospitals - this is an infrastructure crisis. Even when there are not enough classrooms," explains Nir Yanushevski, vice president of the Contractors Association and CEO of the Yanushevski company in a conversation with "Israel Hayom".
"If the apartment is not connected to the infrastructure, there will be nowhere to live. Unlike the housing crisis, Israel lags behind the world in infrastructure. Just to reach the OECD average, we need to double the expenditure. In the end, this crisis also affects people's lives," he adds.
The contractors say that the profit margins in public projects are low compared to the private projects, and that failure to keep up with the increase in the prices of raw materials causes losses for the companies and even the closure of some of them.
According to Yanoshevsky, "Contractors who won tenders in the pre-corona period or at the beginning of the corona without linkage at all, suffered real price increases of tens of percent - the iron rose by 100%, the concrete became more expensive almost to 100%, asphalt, plastic, all metals, glass, aluminum - All materials have become more expensive at very significant rates."
The contractors believe that the solution should be in granting grants or applying linkage retroactively.
David Yahami, chairman of the infrastructure and contract construction headquarters of the Foundation for the Encouragement and Development of the Construction Industry, adds: "Since these are very large projects, then each percentage loss amounts to large amounts.
If the project is a loss, then either it gets stuck in the middle, is delayed and continues for years, or the contractor stops the work because he has no choice, because his guarantees are less than the loss.
We are fighting
for the state to intervene in this matter."
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