The Ministry of Transport and Communications has completed the review of the four public procurements for the purchase of new rolling stock, the Ministry said Monday.
The finalized documents have been sent to the Public Procurement Agency and the National Fund Directorate of the Ministry of Finance for the compulsory prior checking procedure.
The procedures were terminated by Minister Georgi Gvozdeikov and committees were immediately appointed to revise their conditions. The amendments will lead to savings of financial resources due to the elimination of additional activities in the contracts. The eligibility criteria for participants have also been expanded to allow a wider range of producers to take part and therefore more competition between them, the Ministry added.
In addition to the delivery of the rolling stock, the contractor has a commitment to provide maintenance for 15 years. The condition to build a maintenance repair facility has been removed, which does not comply with the requirements of the Recovery and Resilience Plan and poses a high risk of delaying the whole project. Participants are given the opportunity to organize maintenance in the most efficient, economical and market-driven manner that they will determine. There is also an additional procedure for checking the rolling stock at the end of the 15 years of maintenance, which will certify that it is fit for further service.
The new conditions set out requirements for the participants that the rolling stock should be operational 94% or 96% of the time per quarter, depending on the type and number of trains. This requirement regulates the contractor's maintenance time, which must not exceed the hours provided. The types of maintenance activities and specific response times are also specified.
The order for 18 shunting locomotives is divided into two lots, for nine locomotives for shunting inside depots and for nine locomotives for shunting in partially electrified depots and on the tracks from depots to stations. For the first nine locomotives, the requirement for documents to run on the national rail network is discontinued. These changes are expected to save approximately EUR 25 million from this procedure alone.
The foreseen deadline for the submission of proposals is 60 days from the announcement of the procurement.
Minister Gvozdeikov terminated four public procurements for the supply of railway rolling stock under the National Recovery and Resilience Plan in June with the idea of changing and restarting them. The procurement procedure for the supply of new rolling stock was launched at the end of April by then Transport Minister Hristo Aleksiev.
/RY/
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