The government continues with the plan to expropriations for project development central railway, that rehabilitates railway tracks along which the UPM train will transport the pulp from Paso de los Toros to the port of Montevideo. Although the largest number of registers has already been expropriated, there are still several to complete the process.
According to information provided to The Observer by the Ministry of Transport, the project required the expropriation of 991 pieces of land. So far he got 804 and 187 remain to complete the process.
The 804 registers already expropriated had a cost of 1,428,322 Readjustable Units (UR). At the current exchange rate, that set of lands had a cost of more than US$ 51.3 million for the State.
The remaining batch of 187 registers has a cost of 89,386 UR, which is equivalent to more than $3.2 million. The total of the expropriation process that the Ministry of Transport should have assumed is located in $54.6 million. The portfolio continues to work on the remaining standards in order to comply with what the Central Railroad project needs to advance in the spare parts.
The works are carried out by Via Central Group (made up of the Uruguayan companies Saceem and Berkes, the Spanish Sacyr and the French NGE) for the Transportation portfolio. This consortium will rehabilitate 273 kilometers of the railway that connects Paso de los Toros (Tacuarembó) with the port of Montevideo, for the transport of cellulose that will be produced by UPM’s second plant.
The original plan, at least as foreseen by the previous government, had its delays. The contract was signed on May 10, 2019, it was established that the standards would be delivered to the construction group within 10 days. At that time, 440 standards needed for the works had been identified.
The planned timetable generated the inconvenience of the current government. On a tour of Paso de los Toros in November 2020, Luis Alberto Heber, then Minister of Transportation, referred to this aspect. “It would be necessary to ask (for the term) the actors who put the clauses and then their signatures,” he said. A month later he insisted: “It is something that we did not sign and would never have signed.”
The progress of the works
The CAF-AM Central Railway Financial Trust submits quarterly reports to the Montevideo Stock Exchange (BVM) in which it updates the progress of the infrastructure work.
In the last one, corresponding to the first quarter of this year, he reported that the project had a accumulated work progress of 65.4%compared to the 72.2% expected for that date in the plan updated in July 2021. It was explained that the gap was due to delays in the start of the dismantling of the bridge over the Yi River, delays in the start of the construction of the stream Mataperros and the construction of level crossings in Montevideo.
To mitigate this situation, the construction consortium designed an action and recovery plan for delayed activities, according to the report. “According to the independent engineer, regarding the progress of the work and the updated schedule, the completion of the work in May 2023 remains reasonable and achievable,” he added.
