Kerch Strait Bridge project is falling behind schedule
The construction of the railway approaches to the Kerch Strait Bridge from Crimean side is six months behind schedule because officials forgot to identify the project’s customer in official reports.
According to Forbes, the construction did not start because the state customer for this type of work wasn't identified in the federal targeted program on the development of Crimea and Sevastopol. The approaches must connect the railway part of the bridge with the railway network of Crimea. It will then be possible to reach the peninsula and deliver goods by train.
It was assumed that authorities of the Crimean Republic were responsible because they appointed Crimean railways as a customer but at the end of 2015, the company was transferred to the jurisdiction of the Federal Agency for Railway Transport (Roszheldor), which does not appear as a state customer in the federal program. To announce a tender offer for the construction and to choose a contractor, changes must be introduced into the program, Roszheldor sources and the representative of the Ministry of Economic Development said in the newspaper. This process has been delayed.
According to the federal program, the cost of the railway approaches to the bridge from the Kerch direction is 18 billion rubles but it is impossible to transfer even a fraction of this sum to pay for the work already performed by the contractor. "The project has received positive reviews after the examination in June; no issues there. However, Crimean railways pay us from their own profits," a source from one of the companies working on the project of approaches told Forbes.
There have been problems with financing and construction of the bridge itself. In June, Forbes wrote about the delay in payment for the work in connection with the changes in the contract that will now be supported by the treasury.