Road construction continues, but at a snails pace

In the first half of 2002, the National Roads and Highways Authority (GDDKi A) built and renovated 102.9 kilometers of roads at a cost of zl. 438 millio n. In the second half of the year GDDKiA plans to build 332 kilometers of ro ads, which will cost zl. 994.5 million. The majority of finance comes from t he World Bank". Thanks to them we will build 49 kilometers of roads worth zl . 355 million," said Tadeusz Suwara, director of GDDKiA. Progress on freeway s looks much worse. Even with the help of the European Investment Bank and P hare funds, in the first half of 2002 only 4.4 kilometers of A-4 motorway (G liwice-Katowice) was built at a cost of zl. 211.34 million, adding up to a g rand total of 6 kilometers of motorways built so far this year in Poland. Th at number, according to Suwala, should rapidly increase when Parliament amen ds legislation for highway projects. "When the A-4 freeway (Wroclaw-Nogawczy ce) was being built, four years ago, we had to pay compensation of zl. 150 m illion (10% of our total costs) as we had to cut through a forest," said Suw ala. (Puls Biznesu, pp. 1, 3) A.L.