REVENUE from Slovakia's electronic toll collection system in 2010, its first year of operation, should reach around €182.6 million (Sk5.5 billion), Transport Minister Ľubomír Vážny said on January 20, the SITA newswire reported.
SkyToll is to build and begin operating the toll collection system by January 1, 2010 and invest over €265 million (Sk8 billion). If the system is not launched by the deadline, the company will lose invested funds and toll revenues, SITA wrote.
The minister stated that the toll collection may be 10 percent higher than expected in the first year of operation, SITA noted.
The SanToll – Ibertax consortium (now operating as SkyToll) was originally excluded from the qualifying round of the tender in 2008, but was returned to the tender by the Public Procurement Office (ÚVO). Vážny admitted that he did not know who was behind Ibertax, although he “searched for information on the Internet”, SITA wrote.
The National Highway Company (NDS) signed the contract with SkyToll on January 13 and, according to Vážny, it was not the company that submitted the most expensive bid, but the only one that remained in the tender and fulfilled the tender terms. Three other companies were excluded from the tender, allegedly for failure to fulfil the terms of the tender participation, SITA wrote.
NDS Director General Igor Choma said that two of three tender participants were excluded for bids combining extraordinary low prices with inflated effectiveness of their toll collection system. Moreover, there were other more serious reasons for excluding those tender participants, which could not be revealed yet because of the confidential nature of the bid, SITA reported Choma as saying.
“Within three weeks a functional test of the electronic toll collection concept is to be conducted, during which the successful candidate of the tender will show us that it is able to carry out the promised activities,” Vážny said.
