New Central Highway Project: Updates, Construction Start Date, and Controversies (Buenos Días Perú)

2024-03-17 18:05:46
New Central Highway will connect Lima with the Central Amazon region (Buenos Días Perú)

EGIS, the company in charge of the construction of the new Central Highway, an ambitious work aimed at relieving congestion on the only paved road that currently connects Lima with the center of the country, has been highlighted in an extensive report by Hildebrandt in its thirteen bribery cases

The construction company that will provide viability to the legacy project of President Dina Boluarte, the largest public project in the history of the country for which 6,185 million dollars has been allocated, has been denounced for corruption in Panama, India, Algeria and Gabon.

The record has also cost it its entry into the list of companies disqualified by the World Bank (WB) and the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB). The agreement under the “government to government” modality was signed with France during the administration of former president Francisco Sagasti (2020-2021).

And the administration of Emmanuel Macron chose it to carry out this work that, according to Government forecasts, will allow a faster and more efficient connection with the Jorge Chávez international airport, the port of Callao and the future megaport of Chancay.

New Central Highway (MTC)

On January 4, weeks before the preparation of the Definitive Engineering Study (EDI) began, the French firm signed a conciliation agreement with the IDB in which it acknowledged having bribed Panamanian officials in exchange for the awarding of works. The case remains under investigation and, for now, EGIS has acknowledged having bought an official for 16 thousand dollars.

In the Central African country of Gabon, he bribed Pascaline Bongo, the daughter and senior advisor of then-president Omar Bongo, with eight million euros. The events occurred between 2009 and 2011. Three senior executives of the company are among the accused, reports the investigative magazine, based on court documents.

The third corruption case already has a sentence. In 2019, EGIS accepted that it paid bribes to win the contract to remodel the airport in Oran (Algeria), a case in which the Minister of Transport of that nation was involved. To hide the bribes, a consulting contract was simulated with an offshore company located in the Virgin Islands.

In 2018, the World Bank sanctioned a subsidiary of the company in Indonesia with a 15-month ban for “fraudulent practice,” as it gave false information about “highly specialized personnel” to carry out the Road Climate Resilience project. In 2020, it also issued a statement to announce that it had decided to sanction its headquarters in India for its “corrupt and fraudulent” practices in two highway projects.

When will construction of the new Central Highway begin?

The face of EGIS in Peru is administrator Natalia Rey de Castro, former personal assistant to former governor Pedro Pablo Kuczynski and former consultant to the Authority for Reconstruction with Changes (ARCC). On the new Central Highway, the French are in charge of the “Project Management Office” (PMO), that is, from the design of the road to the contract of construction companies that will lay the asphalt, which requires numerous viaducts and tunnels to cross. transversally the Andes, whose geography and orography are complicated and capricious.

Before the magazine made this file public, the firm issued a statement in which it noted that “the companies involved in the event (corruption in Panama) do not work in the management of the projects that PMO Vías is in charge of in Peru.” and that it has “zero tolerance for any violation of ethical standards.”

The future route will be 136 kilometers long, on two roads with two lanes each. This will provide a new alternative to the current Central Highway, the only artery through which the capital is supplied with food and other essential products from the mountains and central jungle, which are located on the other side of the Andes.

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