By Jamie Prentis.
Tunis, 30 November 2017:
Preparations to resume work have begun on the 1,700-kilometre coastal highway from the Tunisian border at Ras Jedir to Musaid, on the border with Egypt.
The Presidency Council’s (PC) transport minister, Milad Matoug, held talks yesterday with Italian ambassador Guiseppe Perrone to restart the stalled project agreed in 2008 between Qaddafi and the then Italian prime minister Silvio Berlusconi.
The project is into four parts. The €963-million contract 400-kilometre section from Musaid to Marj was awarded in 2013 to a consortium led by Salini Impregilo Group According to the ministry, designs for Misrata – Ras Jedir sector are complete and a tender for the construction works is being prepared. It also reports that Perrone noted that there had to be proper security plans in place before any Italian companies could undertake working again in Libya.
Under 2008 Italy-Libya friendship pact which decided that Italy would invest $5 billion in Libyan infrastructure in compensation for the colonial period, the lead construction contracts go only to Italian companies.
