Even two decades after its implementation development law 3299/2004 he will be allowed to complete investment projects that were subject to him, since Ministry of Development and Investment proceeded – for a certain part of the unfinished drafts of the said law – to give another extension. These are, in particular, investment projects for which banking institutions did not make an advance payment to the operators of these projects, for which, however, it was provided Public a fixed amount on the basis of a letter of guarantee.

In fact, although the relevant rule provides that the deferral is given until September 30, 2024, under the terms it gives a delay for another year, that is, until September 30, 2025! The “generosity” of the Ministry of Development does not end there. The same amendment provides that even if decisions have been made to cancel decisions on the inclusion of investment projects in the development law, due to the expiration of the deadline for their completion, the decisions on inclusion are returned to force. .

When was the previous extension given, which, according to the responsible officials of the Ministry of Development, will be the last one? Only in December 2022, article 90 of Law 5007/2022, where it was provided that the deadline for the implementation of investment plans of Law 3299/2004 will be extended for another 9 months, that is, until September 30, 2023.

The amendment of the Ministry of Development, presented on Tuesday evening to the draft law of the same ministry on consumer protection, the bill that was discussed yesterday at the plenary session of Parliament, provides for the following: Investment plans of paragraph a) paragraph 1 of Article 8 of the Law of the Russian Federation: the competent authority, b) certification of a competent engineer for the implementation of the investment project in the amount of at least 25% when submitting an application and c) confirmation of the credit institution that issued the letter of guarantee, or its successor, of non-payment of the amount of the deposited advance to the investment project authority. If 50% of the approved investment plan is implemented by this date, the completion date is extended by another year, effectively until September 2025.

Constant expansion comes at the expense of companies that are consistent in their commitment to development.

Competent circles Ministry of DevelopmentV question from cathimerini for the reason this new extension is being granted, they argued that “this gives the last chance for investment projects to be completed because they were preceded by difficult years such as the years of crisis and after the pandemic” and that there were hundreds of related requests. The explanatory note accompanying the amendment states that the aim of the regulation is to complete critical investments. However, such a scheme entails costs, as can be seen from the report of the General State Accounting Department, in connection with the restoration of decisions on the inclusion of investment projects for which decisions were made to withdraw the inclusion and were obliged to return the aid.

It should be noted that successive extensions were also granted to complete the investment plans of Law 3908/2011, investment plans that actually found themselves in the midst of the financial crisis. The last extension was also given in December last year and provides for the possibility of their completion by the end of 2023.

However, the practice of continuously extending the completion of investment projects, which was largely adhered to by the former leadership of the Ministry of Development, is far from serving development, as it significantly ties up financial and human resources, delaying the implementation of later laws of development. Indeed, in a sense, this is detrimental to those enterprises that are consistent in their obligations in accordance with development laws.

There are still delays on the part of the inspection bodies, as a result of which payments to companies that have completed investment projects remain unfinished. Thus, investments completed in 2015 are now given final decisions on their completion, and they receive seven years after the last part of the assistance.