Pressured by the country's logistical bottlenecks, the National Department of Transport Infrastructure (Dnit) intends to bid for a package of ten major works later this year, which together should demand investments of around R$ 2,7 billion. Part of the projects – considered a priority by the government – are aimed at mitigating the poor conditions for distributing grain production in the Midwest. The public notices are ready to be launched and the expectation is that almost everything will be offered between the months of October and November.
The first planned tender is for the construction of road access to the port of Miritituba, in Pará. The public notice for the project, which is part of the Growth Acceleration Program (PAC), should be published next month, as informed to Valor by general Jorge Fraxe, who until last Sunday occupied the director-general of Dnit. Published yesterday in the Official Gazette, his resignation was already expected, especially due to the health problems that kept him away from work in recent months.
As well as the access to the port in Pará, the implementation of the BR-242, in Mato Grosso, is also among the works considered fundamental to enable the flow of grains from the Midwest through the North region of the country. Currently, much of the crop follows a much more expensive corridor to the ports of Santos (SP) and Paranaguá (PR). The demolition of Pedral do Lourenço, in Pará, will also make way for grains to be transported through a waterway on the Tocantins River. The project was budgeted at R$ 452 million and the auction was scheduled for November 4th.
Service to the region is also provided for in the Federal Government's Logistics Investment Program (PIL). The Ministry of Transport intends to auction, until June of next year, the concession of 976 km of the BR-163 in the stretch between Sinop (MT) and Miritituba (PA).
“Everything related to the flow of the country's grain production is, for us, a high priority. Agribusiness in Brazil makes a relevant contribution to the GDP and we have to be harmonious with that”, explained Fraxe. According to him, almost all new bids will be made under the integrated model of the Differentiated Contracting Regime (RDC), by which entrepreneurs are responsible not only for carrying out the works, but for preparing the project.
The only exception will be the bidding process for two remaining lots on the BR-381, the so-called “Rodovia da Morte”, which connects Belo Horizonte and Governador Valadares. After two failed attempts to auction the lots – which are close to the capital of Minas Gerais and demand many expropriations -, Dnit decided to change the bidding model, which will also be carried out by RDC, but in the global price modality, in which the winning contractor is responsible only for the execution of the project elaborated by the government.
The access to Miritituba and the demolition of Pedral do Lourenço join two other important works in the State of Pará: the construction of a bridge over the Xingu River and two others over the BR-163. In Rondônia, a public notice will be issued for the construction of a bypass road to the north of the capital, Porto Velho, another work foreseen in the PAC, as well as the construction of a bridge over the Jaguarão River, in Rio Grande do Sul.
In the Northeast region, Dnit intends to contract this year the duplication of the BR-101 throughout the territory of Alagoas. Currently, the highway already has two lanes between Recife and Natal. Also part of the package is the contracting of two stretches of the BR-304, in Rio Grande do Norte.
In the agency's calculations, the ten works included in the package should move something close to R$ 2,7 billion. Fraxe informed that the Dnit will execute "with ease" the budget of R$ 13 billion foreseen for this year and that his expectation was to, at least, maintain this figure for the 2015 fiscal year. The general was already considering the possibility of not continuing at Dnit next year. “My mission here is already quite enough,” he said, who will be replaced by the agency's executive director, Tarcísio Freitas.
Source: Valor Econômico
By Murillo Camarotto and Daniel Rittner | From Brasilia
