Prague - Construction tenders in the Czech Republic, above all highway and railway construction, has been controlled by people that have worked for major Czech construction firms. These firms have been awarded numerous construction tenders.

The most obvious name is Aleš Řebíček, who worked for the Viamont construction company until 2006 when he became a transport minister in Mirek Topolánek's government (2006-2009).

During the three years Řebíček served as the minister, his former employer, Viamont, was allowed to participate in public construction projects worth CZK 20 bil (EUR 800 mil). Viamont even participated on construction of new railway corridors.

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Highway baron

However, more important are the cases of Alfréd Brunclík, who chaired the Road and Motorway Directorate of the Czech Republic that belongs under the Transport Ministry, and Jan Komárek, who heads the sister-company Railway Infrastructure Administration. Both organizations are responsible for awarding highway and railroad construction bids.

Before becoming the head of the Road and Motorway Directorate, he was a member of the board of directors of Subterra, a company owned by Metrostav, a Czech construction giant. As the director general of the directorate, he handed over to Metrostav bids worth of CZK 50 bil (EUR 2 bil), which made the company the Czech market leader. Now, Metrostav is one of the four companies that control almost every important highway construction project in the Czech Republic. The other three companies are Eurovia, Skanska and Starbag.

Before 2006, Metrostav did not take part in highway construction in any significant way. Today, it participates in all major construction projects, including the D8 highway from Prague to Ústí nad Labem in North Bohemia and the D3 highway from Prague to Tábor in South Bohemia. Each of them cost more than CZK 10 bil.

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Moravian railway monopoly

In 1995-1999, Komárek was a member of the board of directors of the ŽPSV Uherský Ostroh company. One of his fellow directors was Michal Štefl, who later became a director of the OHL construction company, which eventually bought the ZPSV. OHL is now one of the four largest railway constructors in the Czech Republic which control nearly all public investment projects. OHL itself has a virtual monopoly on railway construction in Moravia. In the last five years, OHL was awarded bids worth of CZK 25 bil (EUR 1 bil) from Komárek's state organization.

Somehow not very surprisingly, Brunclík's RSD and Komárek's SZDC were strikingly unsuccessful in biddings. The firms were paid a lot more than the original demand prices.

For example, before Brunclík became the director of RSD, it was common that the organization managed to cut demand prices as much as by one half. On the contrary, after Brunclík became the director, demand prices usually grew significantly during the bidding.

For example, the R49 road construction was originally set to cost CZK 5 bil. However, the bid was eventually awarded to Eurovia and Metrostav for more than CZK 6.5 bil.

In 2008 and 2009, there were 80 highway construction commission which costed more than CZK 100 mil (EUR 4 mil). In 40 of them, the state paid way more than originally expected. In the rest, the estimated cost did not change.

For comparison, in 2005 and 2006, the state managed to cut demand cost in 75 percent of bids. Both Komárek and Brunclík admitted that the costs grew during the construction.