Guatemala’s Belize II bridge in jeopardy after supervision award annulled

Construction of the Belize II road bridge in Guatemala could be in jeopardy after the communications, infrastructure and housing ministry (CIV) overturned its decision to award the supervision contract to a local company. 

"This will certainly delay the project. This is a project with multi-year annual budgets and [Alejandro] Giammattei's government will be over on January 14 of 2024. According to the project criteria, it [construction] is expected to last three years... This will take a long time," Marvin Flores, an analyst at Guatemalan NGO Acción Ciudadana, told BNamericas in an interview on Wednesday.

In October, CIV awarded Grupo Muratori the contract to build the bridge for 1.79bn quetzales (US$222mn), after it was the only bidder in the tender.

The supervision contract was awarded to D&D Ramírez Hernández on October 25 after it submitted an 89.6mn-quetzal bid. 

At the beginning of December, Acción Ciudadana filed a criminal complaint against the government regarding the decision to grant the supervision contract to that contractor due to alleged corruption.

According to the NGO, D&D Ramírez Hernández had no prior experience in supervising this type of project and did not present the lowest bid.

BNamericas tried to contact D&D Ramírez to obtain its view but received no answer. 

On December 28, the ministry overturned its decision, citing the company’s failure to comply with certain requirements. 

“[The ministry] annulled the award to Constructora D&D Ramírez Hernández for the contracting of design and construction supervision services for the Belize II bridge and associated works… for failure to present the guarantee within the legal timeframe,” says a resolution published on procurement site Guatecompras.

The bridge would provide a new access to Guatemala City from the CA09 Norte highway, and the project also involves overpasses and complementary infrastructure.

The structure will connect zones 1, 2 and 6 of the capital with zones 18 and 17, as well as reorganizing the city's road network in the area and improving transit.