Second terminal at Okęcie on hold - again
The on again, off again plans for the expansion of Warsaw's airport are off. Again.
Mazowieckie Voivod Leszek Mizielinski's office has refused to grant permission for construction of the second terminal at Warsaw's Okęcie airport. Citing as its reason incomplete documents submitted by the consortium in charge of the project, the voivodship says that construction may not begin on the second terminal, nor on the expansion of the first terminal and the office and infrastructure developments that are to go along with it.
Specifically, there was not enough information about transportation between the city and the airport, an oversight that Budimex, its Spanish owner Ferrovial, and Estudio Lamela must now correct if they hope to keep the project on schedule.
"The postponement probably will not be long enough to delay the construction process," says Budimex Public Relations Manager Krzystof Koziol. Work is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2004, so Koziol says that the company should be able to submit the required additional information and still commence building when they had originally planned. The voivodship has up to 60 days to make a decision once they receive the resubmitted application documents, but Koziol says that he anticipates a positive verdict in much less time.
Still, this setback is only the most recent in a process that has been beleaguered by delay and controversy since its inception more than three years ago.
The deadline for the three firms shortlisted in the original tender - the Budimex consortium, Strabag and Hochtief - to submit their bids was pushed back twice in the spring of 2002. The second time involved entirely new tender requirements, prompting Strabag and Hochtief to cry foul when Budimex was awarded the zł.775 million ($200 million) contract. Hochtief was most vocal in its complaints, charging the Polish State Airports Authority (PPL) with an "arbitrary evaluation of the bids." The PPL rejected these protests and their subsequent appeals.
Then, this summer, NIK, Poland's Supreme Chamber of Inspection, blasted the tender process as "not credible" and "un-businesslike". Budimex pushed ahead with its plans, and under the terms of the contract it signed on November 12, 2002, was to have gained permission for construction within one year of that date. They submitted the application within that time, but not soon enough for the voivodship to make its ruling by November 12 of this year.
Should Budimex choose to appeal the voivodship's decision rather than submit additional documents with the information about transportation, they would have to do so by December 10.
Mazowieckie Voivod Leszek Mizielinski's office has refused to grant permission for construction of the second terminal at Warsaw's Okęcie airport. Citing as its reason incomplete documents submitted by the consortium in charge of the project, the voivodship says that construction may not begin on the second terminal, nor on the expansion of the first terminal and the office and infrastructure developments that are to go along with it.
Specifically, there was not enough information about transportation between the city and the airport, an oversight that Budimex, its Spanish owner Ferrovial, and Estudio Lamela must now correct if they hope to keep the project on schedule.
"The postponement probably will not be long enough to delay the construction process," says Budimex Public Relations Manager Krzystof Koziol. Work is scheduled to begin in the spring of 2004, so Koziol says that the company should be able to submit the required additional information and still commence building when they had originally planned. The voivodship has up to 60 days to make a decision once they receive the resubmitted application documents, but Koziol says that he anticipates a positive verdict in much less time.
Still, this setback is only the most recent in a process that has been beleaguered by delay and controversy since its inception more than three years ago.
The deadline for the three firms shortlisted in the original tender - the Budimex consortium, Strabag and Hochtief - to submit their bids was pushed back twice in the spring of 2002. The second time involved entirely new tender requirements, prompting Strabag and Hochtief to cry foul when Budimex was awarded the zł.775 million ($200 million) contract. Hochtief was most vocal in its complaints, charging the Polish State Airports Authority (PPL) with an "arbitrary evaluation of the bids." The PPL rejected these protests and their subsequent appeals.
Then, this summer, NIK, Poland's Supreme Chamber of Inspection, blasted the tender process as "not credible" and "un-businesslike". Budimex pushed ahead with its plans, and under the terms of the contract it signed on November 12, 2002, was to have gained permission for construction within one year of that date. They submitted the application within that time, but not soon enough for the voivodship to make its ruling by November 12 of this year.
Should Budimex choose to appeal the voivodship's decision rather than submit additional documents with the information about transportation, they would have to do so by December 10.
