"The proposals of the participants in the Sofia Airport concession procedure show a very serious attitude towards the development of the airport and its transformation into a decent aviation hub in Europe and outside Europe". This was announced by the Minister of Transport, Information Technology and Communications Rosen Zhelyazkov during the opening of the tenders of the participants in the open Sofia Airport concession procedure.
Rossen Jeliazkov pointed out that there are no candidates removed and the proposals made by the five participants will be carefully considered.
Regarding the deadline for completing the commission's work, the Minister said it was a long and complicated process. "After seeing the full amount of documentation and the details of the business model, the technical and economic proposals will be clearer, but it should be borne in mind that this is not a procedure under the Public Procurement Act, which examines many elements of the proposals for a long-standing public-private partnership, such as is the Concessions Act, "he added.
The Minister urged not to make speculation and hasty conclusions, who will be the selected concessionaire. "In front of us is not a light and very responsible process to assess financial proposals with a relative weight of 55% and technical proposals with a relative weight of 45%, with the final assessment being complex," Rossen Jeliazkov said. He stressed that, as it was till the present moment, in partnership with the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), the International Financial Corporation (IFC) international consultants' expert assessment will also be relied upon. "It is important for us to evaluate the bids professionally and to do it under all international standards to evaluate such offers because the offers are complex and the business model is considered for an extremely long period of time. I believe the procedure will justify the expectations that society has for its legitimate, expedient and transparent conduct, "said Minister Jeliazkov.
The Minister pointed out that this is the first procedure, which is entirely electronic, and explained that the applications and bids are on electronic media, and only on paper are the binding proposals that were opened and read publicly.
Rossen Jeliazkov explained that the maximum has been done to ensure the security and transparency of the procedure. According to him, all documents are stored in secure safes, which are under 24-hour video surveillance, and 24-hour video surveillance of the servers in which the video surveillance records are stored.
The entire meeting of the Commission for conducting the Sofia Airport concession procedure can be found here: https://www.concession-sof.bg/bg/video.