By: J.M.
MPs from the KUL coalition (SD, LMŠ, Levica, and SAB) demanded an urgent extraordinary meeting of the Public Finance Control Commission, because the Motorway Company (Dars) confirmed the most appropriate offer for the establishment of electronic toll collection, i.e. e-vignette, and thus saved us 17 million euros. However, at the same time, some are at a disadvantage for the same amount.
KUL members also called Jernej Vrtovec, the Minister of Infrastructure, to account. They built the discussion on a (allegedly paid) media campaign against the selected contractor and supported the bidders, who offered more than twice the price of the one selected. The highest price offered was over 34 million euros.
Why? Two of the three companies that Dars rejected in the tender lead to the inner circle of Karl Erjavec – these are his new son-in-law Andrej Marčič (Marand) and Željko Puljič (Iskratel Kranj).
According to Dars’ choice, the electronic toll collection system for private vehicles will be set up in Slovenia by the Slovak company Skytoll. The selection of the contractor, who submitted a €15.7 million and the only admissible bid, was confirmed at the end of January by the Supervisory Board of DARS.
The offer of the Slovak company Skytoll was as much as 17 million euros cheaper than the unselected bidder chosen by the quartet from KUL.
Minister Jernej Vrtovec also took part in the session, saying, among other things: “We will be able to use this money for the construction of the northern and southern parts of the third development axis, the Ormož – Ptuj expressway or for road repairs.”
Three bidders applied for Dars’ tender for the establishment of an electronic vignette system, which is expected to come to life in December this year. In addition to Skytoll, the bidders were also Iskratel in partnership with the Hungarian ARH Informatics, and a consortium of companies Marand, Telekom Slovenije, Pošta Slovenije, and Kapsch.
After the decision of the supervisors of DARS, things got complicated. And not only with the bidders, as a connection of some politicians to the bidders was found.
The consortium of companies Marand, Telekom Slovenije, Pošta Slovenije, and Kapsch is led by Andrej Marčič, the owner of Marand, who is the new son-in-law of Karl Erjavec, president of the DeSUS party and a failed candidate for prime minister of the KUL coalition.
The aforementioned have filed an appeal against Dars’ decision, and the procedure is before the National Audit Commission.
The SAB, LMŠ, SD, and Levica then demanded that the National Assembly’s Commission for the Supervision of Public Finances discusses this. By doing so, they wanted to directly influence the decision of the National Audit Commission. They referred to media reports against the company Skytoll, especially through the newspaper Dnevnik, for which the portal (pozareport.si) reported yesterday that this campaign was supposed to be financed by Željko Puljić from Iskratel.
Požar also reported that some people in Telekom Slovenije, which was in addition to Pošta Slovenije part of Marand’s consortium, were allegedly angry with Erjavec’s son-in-law Marčič. And rightly so, because he set an abnormally high price in the tender, which was 17 million euros higher than SkyToll’s. Otherwise, they say, they would very likely get the deal.
Alenka Bratušek, through the demands of her party SAB to convene Friday’s session of the Financial Supervision Commission, is “merely raising her budget for the upcoming election campaign – according to a well-known price list, even though, in the light of the debate, the session of the parliamentary committee then actually turned against those who demanded its urgent convening”.
This year’s vignette is expected to be the last which will have to be scratched from the windshields. According to the announcement of the Minister of Infrastructure Jernej Vrtovec, we will switch to electronic vignettes at the end of the year (e-vignettes), which will be more economical. The e-vignette will work on the license plate and its registration number and, unlike old vignettes, will be valid for one year from the date of purchase.
Source: Moja Dolenjska