“Moderately unsatisfactory” is the grade that the World Bank gave for the progress of the implementation of the project for the construction of the Rankovce – Kriva Palanka Expressway, on Corridor 8.
The World Bank, which sources the money for the project, emphasizes that the construction of the 23 kilometres long road is underway, but the progress of the works must be speed up during the summer period. As a result of this conclusion from the World Bank, the grade in the last Report on the status of the realization and the results of the project was changed from “moderately satisfactory” to “moderately unsatisfactory”.
This criticism from World Bank comes together with the last report of the Ministry of Finance, which says the government in the first five months spent only 13.74 per cent of the capital investment funds for 2019.
The construction of the Rankovce-Kriva Palanka Expressway started on 22 June last year, with a 3 year deadline. Citizens are supposed to drive on the new road from the middle of 2021, for which a loan was taken out in 2015 from the World Bank. The total investment is over 58 million euros.
In a statement for “Meta”, Zoran Kitanov, the director of the Public Enterprise for State Roads, in the middle of June claimed that the Rankovce – Kriva Palanka Expressway is being constructed without any obstructions, although he inherited a completed project when he came to the position, the percentage of the expropriation of the land was very low and the World Bank had put a ban, threatening to take the loan back.
-I employed new lawyers and in 5 months we arrived at 90 percent of expropriation of the land – said director Kitanov then.
