The Ministry of Transport “ask” for more than 11,700 billion VND to deal with the shortcomings of 8 traffic BOT projects

The Ministry of Transport has just conducted a general review of BOT toll stations on National Highways, thereby making statistics There are still 8 BOT projects that need to be handled including: La Son – Tuy Loan toll station (project to build road tunnel through Ca Pass); Bim Son toll station (payback for the western ring road of Thanh Hoa city, section Km0-Km6); Km1747 toll station (BOT project to upgrade and expand Ho Chi Minh road section Km1738+148-Km1763+610); T2 toll station (BOT project to renovate and upgrade National Highway 91 through Can Tho city, section Km14-Km50+889).

Thai Nguyen-Cho Moi BOT toll station.

National Highway 3 toll station (BOT project to build Thai Nguyen-Cho Moi route and renovate and upgrade National Highway 3, section Km75-Km100); Thai Ha bridge toll station (BOT project to invest in construction of Thai Ha bridge over the Red River on the road connecting the two provinces of Thai Binh and Ha Nam with Cau Gie-Ninh Binh highway);

National Highway 26 BOT project; project to renovate and upgrade Saigon river channel from Binh Loi railway bridge to Ben Suc port in the form of BOT contract.

For the above 8 BOT projects, the Ministry of Transport said that the toll collection has not yet been collected or the revenue has been reduced, mainly due to objective and unpredictable reasons (such as unforeseen events. resistance) or due to changes in legal policies from State agencies.

According to the provisions of the BOT project contract, in the event of a force majeure situation affecting the toll collection or revenue, the Ministry of Transport is responsible for reporting to the competent authority for assistance. to the investor to ensure the return of capital and profit under the contract and to pay and compensate the expenses made by the investor, as determined through the audit.

“In terms of the overall solution to handle problems and inadequacies in the above BOT projects, it is necessary to allocate about 11,710 billion VND from the State budget”, the leader of the Ministry of Transport said.

As for the state capital paid to the investor to terminate the contract ahead of time, currently, the Law on Public Investment does not have provisions allowing the arrangement of public investment capital to pay the investor upon the termination of the contract. coins ahead of time. Therefore, the leader of the Ministry of Transport said that in order to have a basis for implementation, it is necessary to report to the National Assembly for consideration and decision.

According to a report of the Ministry of Transport, by the end of 2021, the whole country has mobilized about 706,000 billion VND to invest in 222 transport infrastructure projects under the method of public-private partnership (PPP), in which the investment projects are under the public-private partnership (PPP) method. BOT form accounts for about 53.6% (119 projects with a total capital of more than 388 trillion VND).

Since 2018, the Ministry of Transport has made efforts to coordinate with ministries, branches and localities, investors and related agencies to carry out a comprehensive review of BOT toll stations on national highways, assess any access and select treatment solutions suitable to the specific conditions of each toll station.

Up to now, the Ministry of Transport has handled problems and inadequacies at 14 toll stations with problems and inadequacies; After handling the problems, the toll stations have received the consent of the service users, the security situation has been ensured, and the toll collection has basically stabilized.

The Ministry of Transport assigned the Public-Private Partnership Department in May 2022 to have a detailed report of BOT stations to submit to the Prime Minister to agree on solutions to remove and handle./.

According to Phi Long