Opposition to Serbia's Minister: I wouldn't brag about results in infrastructure

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An opposition official told Serbia's Minister of Mining and Energy on Wednesday, he wouldn't boast about the results in the country's infrastructure, adding that in the last eight years, "266 kilometres of motorways have been completed, indebted the country for an additional 12 billion Euros."

Dusan Nikezic, from the opposition Party of Freedom and Justice (SSP) said foreign companies were engaged in most of the jobs, what „destroyed Serbia’s construction industry.“

„If I were you,“ he told Minister Zorana Mihajlovic, „I would not brag about the results of ‘Roads of Serbia’ and the construction of infrastructure. You are record holders in terms of construction costs, so the Kuzmin-Raca section (about 18 kilometres) you have mentioned costs 13 million Euros per kilometre. The Zagreb – Split motorway (some 400 kilometres) cost an average of six million Euros per kilometre.“

Nikezic added that „the situation with deadlines is even worse. The construction of only one viaduct and tunnel on the Belgrade-Novi Sad railway last 52 months, „longer than the 1,142 kilometres works on the entire railway through Tibet.“

„According to the findings of the State Audit Institution, you have allowed ‘Roads of Serbia’ to pay half a billion Euro without public procurement and to lose 143 million Euros in 2019 alone,“ he said.

Nikezic charged that „the construction and maintenance of roads in Serbia serve exclusively for the enrichment of foreign and a handful of regime construction companies.“