Guatemala’s highway tenders raise concerns

Guatemala’s communications, infrastructure and housing ministry (CIV) has reportedly awarded 92 highway conservation, maintenance and signaling tenders in just one week, raising concerns about the fairness of the bidding processes. 

The contracts total 2.2bn quetzales (US$295mn), according to daily Prensa Libre, which obtained all tender documents from procurement site Guatecompras. 

In all, the contracts make up 70% of the 3bn quetzales approved by congress last March so CIV could carry out the highway network recovery plan. 

The plan entails works on 14 national highways, the construction of 11 bridges and building the 5.1km Belice II bridge, which is currently in a bidding process. 

The contracts range from 379,000 quetzales for the supervision of specific projects to 285mn for the periodic maintenance of the road network, Prensa Libre said.