Most construction companies, regardless of size, remain “stuck” in unprofitable projects due to a significant increase in construction costs, as they have been until today, and although it has been almost six months since the announcement by the Ministry of Infrastructure, the mechanism for releasing material price revision coefficients. Such as refers to “K” President of SATE (Panhellenic Association of Technical Companies), “the convening of the Public Works Pricing Committee (EDTDE) first took place just a few days ago, and while the legislative intervention (which only concerns the first quarter of 2022) took place in June. Accordingly, the Unified Pricing System and Technical Specifications for Projects and Surveys, which will provide a final solution to the problem of construction costs and rationalization of the budgets of announced projects, still does not exist, although it has been legally enshrined since March 2021. .”

According to Mr. G. Vlahos, the expected adoption of the Joint Ministerial Decision (JM) in April of this year took a period of 13 months, and until today, ie. more than six months, the Company’s board of directors specifications and prices for technical work and survey. According to SATE, if not for this delay, it would have been possible to deal with the sharp increase in construction costs faster and more correctly. At the same time, according to SATE, there has been an increase in unpaid work in NSRF and Public Investment Program projects.

Unpaid work in NSR and PDE projects is on the rise, builders say.

Specifically for the latter, Ministry of Infrastructure circles state that “Our intention is to maximize the use of all available financial instruments, and customers should also submit funding requests to the competent ministry in a timely manner to avoid delays. to pay bills for the project.

At the same time, representatives of the ministry inform “K” that “the request to activate the Commission for determining the prices of public works with the formation of a new commission, which was published in the Official Gazette on October 14 and will take over the determination of prices for the coming quarters of the review, has also been granted. . Accordingly, the permanent request of the contracting world for the establishment of the Observatory of Prices has also been granted, since the Ministry has established it and continues to create it. Recall that the price review mechanism provided for public works was activated for the first time since 2012 by two ministerial decisions for all four quarters of 2021, and now also for the first quarter of 2022.

According to SATE, in addition to issues related to the current situation, “for public works, there has been no training in the area of ​​simplifying and modernizing the legislation, which is still based on the ideas of the last century, especially on the progress of public works.” For example, SATE indicates that model project contracts based on international experience can be established to expedite procedures that currently require typically 12 to 18 months from the date of notification to the signing of the project contract.