Second Tender for Waste Water Treatment Plant in Krnjaca Stopped After One Year – Procurement for Construction of Sewer on Danube Left Bank “On Hold” Since Last October

The agreement for the design and construction of the waste water treatment plant in Krnjaca has not been awarded even after a year since the opening of the second public procurement procedure.

The notification says that the public procurement procedure has been stopped. It is added that the Republic Commission for Protection of Rights in Public Procurement Procedures will revise the tendering procedures.

The tender for the first phase of the construction of this plant in Krnjaca, which was opened by the Belgrade Land Development Public Agency and the EU Delegation to Serbia, was published on two occasions, last year and the year before that.

The reason for repeating the first procurement procedure was initially not announced, but the then deputy mayor of Belgrade, Goran Vesic, later said that the problem was with the clause on increasing the price of the job.

After the opening of the second tender, Vesic said that no application had been submitted at the previous tender, “although 38 domestic and European companies bought the documentation.”

– The contractors were afraid that due to the war in Ukraine and the rise in the prices of construction materials and labor, they would start a job that should last 30 months, and on which only a ten percent increase in the price was allowed. Now the EIB and the City of Belgrade have changed this provision in line with the new European practice in crisis and the decisions of the City of Belgrade – he said at the time.

The application deadline for the second tender was extended until September 6, and now, after a year, the information is that the tender has been stopped.

Let us remind that the solving of the problem of the sewer on the left bank on the Danube in Belgrade, which includes the construction of a water treatment plant in Krnjaca and the construction of a sewer system in Krnjaca, Kotez and Borca, has been announced for five years now.

Since March 2022, the tender for the construction of the sewer system has been extended as many as 4 times, most recently in September last year, with October 18 as the deadline.

The value of these two tenders had been estimated at around EUR 53 million, and the plan was for the investment to be realized with the agreed loan form the European Investment Bank.

This spring, in response to an MP’s question at the National Assembly of Serbia, now minister of construction, transport and infrastructure, Goran Vesic, stated that the contractors had been selected, for both tenders.

– I asked to speak in response to the question, although it has absolutely nothing to do with the Ministry of Construction, Transport and Infrastructure. Some 15 or 20 days ago, the City of Belgrade and the EIB selected the contractor for the construction of the waste water treatment plant on the left bank of the Danube. Until now, the bids were evaluated according to the EIB rules. The company from India which won the tender has been selected. As for the construction of 80 kilometers of the sewer system, the tender is finished and a company from Turkey has been selected, and the signing of the agreement on the construction of the sewer in now in progress – Vesic said on April 27, as reported by Insajder.

The Belgrade Land Development Public Agency said that, in cooperation with EIB representatives, the examination of the bids sent in response to the tender for the design and construction of the waste water treatment plant in Krnjaca and the examination of the bids sent in response to the tender for the construction of 80 kilometers of a sewer system in the territory of the settlement of Krnjaca, with primary collectors in Zrenjaninski Put Street, Borca and Kotez and the reconstruction of sewer pumping stations, were being done at that moment.

On the other hand, the now leaving mayor of Belgrade, Aleksandar Sapic, also said this April that the city would look for other sources of finance if the EIB failed to approve the funds by June.

B. P.

Grad Beograd

Evropska investiciona banka EIB

JP Direkcija za građevinsko zemljište i izgradnju Beograda

Delegacija Evropske unije u Republici Srbiji Beograd

City of Belgrade

European Investment Bank

Belgrade Land Development Public Agency

EU Delegation to Serbia

Goran Vesic

Aleksandar Sapic

left bank of the Danube

waste water treatment plant in Krnjaca

tender for waste water treatment plant in Krnjaca

construction of sewer in Krnjaca Borca and Kotez

stopping of tender for construction of waste water treatment plant in Krnjaca