Government will hold 12 highway auctions in 2024; ‘Rodovia of Death’ in MG is on the list, says minister

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Section of BR-381 in Minas Gerais has a high rate of deaths and accidents. Other auction attempts received no interested parties. Minister of Transport Renan Filho Reproduction The Minister of Transport, Renan Filho, stated this Wednesday (29) that the government plans to hold 12 highway auctions in 2024. The so-called “Rodovia of Death” in Minas Gerais should be auctioned in the first semester. This is a section of BR-381, between Belo Horizonte (MG) and Governador Valadares (MG), known by this nickname because of the high rate of accidents. The government even launched an auction for the stretch this year, but there were no interested parties. “We will work in the next few days to adapt the auction to market expectations, so that we can find someone interested in the concession in the first half of next year. This will be one of the auctions for the first half of next year”, declared the minister to journalists. Auction for the concession of BR-381 between BH and Valadares is postponed once again During the government of former president Dilma Rousseff (PT), the road had works put out to tender in 11 lots, but construction was delayed in several sections. The highway was tendered again in 2022, but the National Land Transport Agency (ANTT) canceled the tender due to a lack of interested parties. According to the minister, in the last auction attempt, this year, the notice was modified because the Federal Audit Court (TCU) considered that the terms were very advantageous for the winning company. This resulted in an empty auction, he claims. “We had to come to an understanding with the TCU, which felt that the contract was too attractive in the way that the Ministry of Transport and ANTT had presented it. The attractiveness was reduced and this reduction in attractiveness forced an empty auction, because that is a complex asset to manage”, he said at an event held by the National Transport Confederation (CNT). First auction of the year According to Renan Filho, the first highway auction next year will be the BR-040 concession, also in Minas Gerais, in February. “We were going to do the 040 this year, but listening to the market, we put it for February next year. […] We are going to hold an opening auction of the year at B3, next year, in a year in which we will have approximately 12 auctions”, he stated. The ministry’s intention is to hold 35 new auctions by the end of 2026, when the mandate of the President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT). Readjustment of contracts In addition to the new auctions, the government intends to renegotiate highway contracts with problems to unlock investments estimated at R$ 80 billion. In September, the Ministry of Transport published an ordinance establishing a deadline between 1st September and December 31, 2023 for companies to express interest in changing the terms of concession agreements. According to minister Renan Filho, this Wednesday (29), of the 15 contracts that the government is considering renegotiating, ten filed a request of adequacy so far. The minister states that he is considering extending the deadline “a little further”. Of the ten requests, four were forwarded to the Federal Audit Court (TCU) for analysis. Renan said that the most advanced of them is the concession of BR 101 in Espírito Santo, managed by ECO 101. “We can soon carry out the first optimization”, he declared.

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