The fight between Milei and Kicillof over the privatization of the routes heats up: Buenos Aires denounced that information was leaked

The privatizations of the national routes added another chapter of tension from the confrontation between the Nation and the province of Buenos Aires, embodied in the president Javier Miley and the governor Axel Kicillof. This time it was for the exclusion of Buenos Aires Highways (AUBASA) of the tender to retain the concession for works on 1,325 kilometers on routes 3, 205, 226 and the Ezeiza – Cañuelas, Riccheri and Newbery highways.

This week Kicillof officials denounced that the Government leaked information about AUBASA’s economic offercontained in “envelope 2” of the tender, before opening all the proposals at the same time.

Specifically, a letter that Pablo Ceriani sent to the Ministry of Economy of the Nation denounced that Between Monday, April 13 and Tuesday, April 14 at 3:30 p.m., the Contrat.Ar portal displayed the rate proposed by AUBASAwhich is reserved until the formal opening.

Previously, The Nation had disqualified the Buenos Aires company for two reasonswhich was just officially announced by the Ministry of Transportation on Wednesday of this week: that AUBASA does not prove the capacity to execute works directlyby itself, without outsourcing contracts, and a greater debt than allowed in the sheets.

The decision to exclude the company was challenged by the province, which will go to court to request the annulment of the entire process.

In the official offices of La Plata they warn not only that they complied with all the requirements of the tender, but also that there are other competitors who would not comply and were also admitted.

As he told Clarion At the end of February, in this process the government of Buenos Aires competes against construction companies of Cristóbal López (CPC), the Roggio family, the Mindlin family (Sacde) and the Sapag family – which retains power in Neuquén -, among others.

AUBASA challenged the admissions of the firms of Roggio, Cristóbal López, the consortium of Sebastián Galluzzo, the Andrenacci, the Radetic, David Serna and Patricio Gerbi, the union of Pablo Quintín and the Andrenacci and the offer of Gustavo David Machado in Creditech, specialized in giving “quick and paperless” credits.

Clarín consulted the Ministry of Transportation, which confirmed that article 5 of the document, in its second amending circular, excludes companies that do not do direct work, and at the close of this edition it had not yet responded for the leak of economic information that Aubasa reported.

The bidding process in question was authorized by a resolution of the Ministry of Economy, which authorized the call for bids for the construction, operation, maintenance and administration of different sections of the national road network. The call includes two large blocks: the South-Atlantic-Southern Access Section and the Pampa Section, which together cover more than 1,800 kilometers of routes.

The tender is part of the Executive’s plan to transfer the operation and maintenance of national routes to the private sector, with the aim of reducing public spending and promoting investments in road infrastructure. In this framework, Stage II of the Federal Concessions Network joins other similar processes initiated in different corridors of the country.

The tender for Stage II B and Stage III, which group together more than 6,475 kilometers of national routes, is also being carried out through the Contrat.Ar website. Bids will be presented on May 11 and 22, respectively, and the winners will be those who collect the cheapest tolls and commit to making an initial investment in maintenance.

The national route network has about 40,000 kilometers, of which 10,000 were already under concession and another 9,000 are being privatized. For the rest, The Government has just authorized 9 allied governors to collect tolls on those roads and make them viable, after two years of not executing public works.