Progress of national roads' rehabilitation discussed within Road Fund Council of Moldova

Chisinau, 8 September /MOLDPRES/ - Fifty one per cent of the works of maintenance and rehabilitation of national roads, worth 754 million lei from Road Fund’s sources, were carried out in the first eight months of this year. Data to this effect was unveiled at a today’s meeting of the Road Fund’s Council, chaired by Prime Minister Natalia Gavrilita, the government’s communication and protocol department has reported.     

According to the report on the implementation of the programme concerning the distribution of the present Road Fund, 29 million lei (96 per cent) has been turned to account for the current maintenance of roads. In June 2022, decision-makers carried out the procedure of procurements for the carrying out of routine works on public roads from the Balti municipality, Falesti, Sangerei districts for the period 2022-2025.  At the same time, 108 million lei (69.5 per cent) was turned to account for the periodical maintenance of roads. Also, 50.6 million lei (70.6 per cent) was turned to account to ensure the road traffic security and 17.6 million lei (71 per cent) – for works of maintenance and current repair of roads. At the same time, 43.2 million lei (62 per cent) was turned to account for roads’ maintenance during winter, 149 million lei (28 per cent) – for the reconstruction/repair of national public roads and 34 million lei (57 per cent) was turned to account for the carrying out of works of designing, evaluation of roads and purchasing grounds.       

As much as 17.2 million lei (9.4 per cent) was turned to account to co-finance projects on roads’ rehabilitation and 32.2 million lei (46 per cent) – for the administration of public roads on the period January-June 2022. A sum of 1.9 million lei was used for the creation of green areas in zones of roads’ protection. The money was allocated for works of planting trees and bushes in zones of roads’ protection for September – October 2022. As much as 2.1 million lei was used for the implementation of modern technologies and carrying out the quality control and 19.4 million lei was spent for the buying of equipment (endowment of the testing lab of the State Administration of Roads, measuring the traffic on national roads, extension of the forecasts and control system).      

Also, progress was reported in terms of improvement of those 300 km of local roads - a project by the World Bank since 2015. The participants in the meeting emphasized that all roads within this project would be finished till the end of 2022, except for the Corridor 10 Costesti-Tapala, which will be carried out in the spring of 2023.    

At the same time, the participants in the meeting referred to the updating of the interactive map of the national roads - https://www.asd.md/harta-interactiva/. The map is to be soon completed with ten road segments, identified by the Interior Ministry, on which a large number of deaths was recorded, being regarded as black points on the national roads.   

The participants also presented a project of the system of management of the road cloth, HDM4 and PAVER, which will allow working out a strategic vision as to the way of prioritizing the road segments based on economic and social criteria, including the estimation of the costs needed.    

In the end, the participants in the meeting approved the Government Decision on the distribution of the means of the road fund for the national public roads for 2022 with a sum of 325.5 million lei, - money supplemented to the 1.48 billion lei due to be used for the construction of the access road and platforms for the floating bridge Leova – Bumbata and other infrastructure projects. At the same time, they approved the redistribution of the fund’s means for certain works of national roads’ maintenance.    

The Road Fund’s Council is a consultative body set up for ensuring the transparency and efficient use of the road fund’s means. The Council is made up of 11 people, of whom 8 representatives of central specialty public authorities and three representatives of public associations and employers in the sector of transports and roads.      

Photo: Government