Although the project has been delayed several times, it seems that construction might finally begin in 2017.
The first round of the tender for the construction of the Pelješac Bridge ended today. The Croatian Roads public company has so far received 12 applications from interested companies. According to the Law on Public Procurement, information on potential candidates in the restricted procedure of public procurement is secret, so Croatian Roads cannot announce the names of companies which have submitted their bids for the Pelješac Bridge, reports Večernji List on December 3, 2016.
What follows is a review and assessment process which will take about two weeks, and then, according to the Law on Public Procurement, Croatian Roads may seek clarifications and additional documentation, with bidders having ten days to respond.
According to a more optimistic scenario, by the end of January the bidders who do not meet technical, legal and financial requirements will receive notice that they had not entered the second round, while those who do meet these requirements will be invited to submit their financial bids. However, those who do not enter the second round will have the right to appeal and therefore it is difficult to predict when the second round might begin and when it might be completed.
It would not be anything unusual for these deadlines to be breached. That has already happened in the first round, which was originally supposed to be completed on 22 August. But, due to three appeals to the State Commission for Supervision of Public Procurement Process, the entire procedure is running late by more than three and a half months.
Estimated value of the works for the construction of the Pelješac Bridge and access roads is 1.756 billion kuna, and the number of applications received has confirmed the expectations that there will be major interest by Croatian and international construction companies for this project, which this time seems better prepared than in 2007, when the first tender for the construction of the bridge was announced.
At the time, just three bids were received, the estimated value of the works was 1.9 billion kuna, but the contract with Croatian companies was ultimately terminated due to lack of money. This time, most of the money for the construction of the bridge will be probably provided from the European Union funds.
