Minister Raz Concedes R4 Section Could Be Finished Only in 2031

Vysny Orlik, 26 November (TASR) – It's possible that the Kapusany-Vysny Komarnik R4 section might be completed no earlier than in 2031, Transport Minister Jozef Raz (a Smer-SD nominee) conceded after an away-from-home session of the government in the village of Vysny Orlik (Presov region) on Wednesday. "We've launched a public procurement for documentation for the construction plan. If we manage to procure it within four months from today, we'll have one year to deliver the project documentation. We can then apply for the construction plan, which is a single-stage decision, and afterwards it will be ready for PPP. At that point we can also start property settlement," said Raz. In the case of the Kapusany–Lipniky R4 section, the Transport Ministry already has zoning approval, according to Raz. "Today we committed ourselves at the government session to procure surveyors, separate the parcels that need to be settled, and proceed with property settlement, so it isn't true that we aren't moving forward," he stated. Raz added that the public procurement for a PPP advisor is already at an advanced stage. According to him, approximately next year, after the public procurements are successfully completed, design work will begin, and at the same time a feasibility study for the PPP project on the R4 will be prepared. Raz said that €70 million has been received from the Connecting Europe Facility (CEF) for the R4. Responding to the fact that Poland is advancing with its expressway construction towards the Slovak border, the minister said that Poland is a large country with high consumption and a strong gross domestic product. "Of course, they have an excellent expropriation process in place, meaning that they supported it with a constitutional law, so they can act somewhat more radically and faster than what our Strategic Investments Act has allowed us to do," he noted. mf/df