The construction sector cannot use the assistance offered by the government and they are not involved in the state program, - the Infrastructure Builders Association reports.
According to the government decree, which came into force on March 31 last year, the government offers an increase of the contract value by 10% -20% to the companies that won the tenders for the infrastructure project. Companies need additional money to compensate for the increased cost of building materials. Prices have changed significantly due to the pandemic. In some cases, the growth exceeds 20%, however, construction companies do not receive state aids.
The reason is that the companies need an audit report from a top ten audit firm to confirm the loss. Ana Sabakhtarashvili, director of the Infrastructure Builders Association, says that preparing documents is quite expensive and in some cases companies are not worth preparing.
According to her, some companies avoid making additional expenditures, because they do not have a payment guarantee, as their documentation may simply be flawed.
Moreover, state approved the aid program in March last year, but they recently came up with a special formula according to which reimbursement should be made. Ana Sabakhtarashvili says that it was impossible to get reimbursement without the formula and companies have lost several months.
"The demand for reimbursement was the first thing we raised at the beginning of the pandemic. One of the primary threats to businesses amid the pandemic was the rising USD and, consequently, increased cost of building materials.
It has been almost 1 year since the decree came into force, however I do not know of any companies that have received any compensation up to now. Unfortunately, the reason is not that the companies did not have to overspend. The reason is that the project actually adopted in March was waiting for changes for many months. In fact, we only got the final formula in December,” said Ana Sabakhtarashvili.
