The chamber of road building comprises over 200 companies. They estimated that at present costs, the plans of the government will cost PLN 100-110 billion. This is similar to what the government calculates but road companies believe that the administration will not raise more than PLN 75 billion.
“We will get PLN 44 billion from the EU. The fuel excise duty planned to be spent for road building amounts to PLN 2.2 billion annually. The fuel fee for roads amounts to PLN 1 billion”, Wojciech Malusi explained.
In his opinion, the state should spend 1 percent of the GDP to build roads instead of 0.3 percent today. The chamber proposes to convey 48 percent of the fuel excise duty for road building and not 12 percent as it is done today. The Ministry of Transport has already asked the Ministry of Finance to implement a suitable change. The latter is not eager to do it.
“The law would have to be amended, which means that the government and Parliament must approve of it”, Kuba Lutyk, the ministry spokesman said.
Even if there are enough funds, the road authorities GDDKiA may not be able to spend them.
“Last year, GDDKiA announced 899 tenders and made decisions in 832 cases, or in 93 percent of cases. This year there were 528 tenders announced and only 306 ended, which amounts to 60 percent”, Adam Kulikowski, the deputy chairman of the road chamber stressed.
(PLN 1 = EUR 0.266)