It is not yet known when the construction of the most expensive twelve and a half kilometers of asphalt on the M-18 highway connecting the capitals of Bosnia and Herzegovina and Montenegro will begin. The new road has been announced by the Government of Republika Srpska for over a decade, while at the same time neglecting the maintenance of the existing road. After a long-standing ban, trucks and passenger buses will once again be allowed to operate on this road route.
The project, financed by the World Bank and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development, could cost Bosnia and Herzegovina around 100 million euros. In parallel, a modern bridge on the Tara River would be built with joint funds from both countries, as well as a joint border crossing on Montenegrin territory.
There are at least three reasons for the delay, he reveals. Center for Investigative Journalism of Montenegro (CIN-CG).
In order to become operational, the Sustainable, Integrated and Safe Road Infrastructure Project for Bosnia and Herzegovina, which was approved by the World Bank's Board of Executive Directors in March this year, still needs to be ratified by the BiH Presidency and the two houses of the Parliamentary Assembly. When this will happen is unknown, given that the BiH Council of Ministers only completed its part of the work at the end of May.
The public company, Putevi Republike Srpska (Putevi RS), which is the project leader, only mentions a tender for the design and construction of an interstate bridge with a completion deadline of 36 months in its procurement plan for this year, without providing further details.
And finally, in February this year, the Transport Administration of Montenegro terminated the contract with the company that was supposed to design the access road from the new bridge to the joint border crossing on the territory of Montenegro, because the designer proposed technical solutions that did not provide conditions for safe traffic.
For these two countries, the construction of the new road also has a symbolic dimension. When Montenegrin President Jakov Milatović arrived in Sarajevo for an official visit late last year, the reconstruction of the road was his top priority.
"Let me just remind you that Sarajevo and Podgorica are the two closest, geographically speaking, capital cities, only 170 kilometers apart, but unfortunately, when you cross that road, it doesn't seem that way," said Milatović.
While the section of road between Nikšić and Plužine on the Montenegrin side is being hastily expanded, the delays in the work become apparent as soon as you cross the border. After a bridge with wooden thresholds that can only accommodate a few vehicles in the same direction at a time, travelers from the Bosnian side are greeted by the containers of the Hum border crossing and a neglected section of the existing main road.
Those in the know say that more than 300 vehicles cross this border during the season. If they are lucky enough not to wait long at the crossing, it can take up to an hour for travelers to travel about twenty kilometers to the town of Foča, along a narrow, winding, asphalt-macadam road with occasional wooden bridges and streams that undermine the road. Congestion on the Bosnian side of the border crossing is also caused by vans with rubber boats that take tourists on a raft trip down the Tara River.
"The road as it is is a major obstacle to the development of this region, not only tourism, but also the economy in this area," says Ivan Doderović, director of the "Piva" Nature Park based in Plužine, a Montenegrin municipality bordering Foča.
"During the summer season, huge crowds form."
Many citizens of Foča are convinced that nothing will come of the new road because they have been listening to unfulfilled promises from Republika Srpska officials for decades. In recent years, the public company Putevi RS has been financing the maintenance of mainly only the first section of the existing highway, from Foča to the village of Kopilovi, where the planned location of the Buk Bijela Hydroelectric Power Plant is located.
"As soon as these two saints pass by, they will start work immediately," says the owner of the rafting camp and restaurant, who wished to remain anonymous, ironically.
The project envisages the construction of a new main route on average between fifty and sixty meters higher than the existing one, which in theory means that rafting camps could continue to use the existing road for their needs.
Representatives of the Municipality of Foča are confident that everything is going according to plan:
"Expropriation has been completed on 57 out of 60 plots, and the report and procedure were monitored by two consulting companies, regarding ecology, property and technical documentation," said Vesna Rašević, Deputy Mayor of the Municipality of Foča.
Doderović from the Piva National Park is not overly optimistic:
"In February, the Municipality of Foča told us that the road would be built in March, only to have people appear who say that an impact assessment is still being done, which is the initial step. I don't think reconstruction will happen anytime soon."
The Ministry of Communications and Transport of BiH, in a response to CIN-CG, said that both state ministries have fulfilled their obligations and that they expect "Putevi RS" to soon announce a tender for the construction of the bridge.
The big question is how capable this company is of carrying out such a serious project. The Main Audit Office of the Republika Srpska issued a qualified opinion on the financial statements of Putev RS for 2020. The then director of Putev RS was Nenad Nešić, later the State Minister of Security. In December last year, the BiH Prosecutor's Office opened criminal proceedings against Nešić and his successor Milan Dakić, who are accused of high-level corruption and money laundering.
For some it's a main road, for others it's an access road
In the area covered by the Project, 586 people are registered in eight settlements. Except in the settlements of Brod na Drini and Kopilovi, through which the existing road was widened and a new layer of asphalt was laid, few residents in other villages dare to spend the winter, as they reach their homes on macadam roads.
In the returnee village of Tečići, not far from Hum, we met Selim Bostandžić and Nusret Đendušić. They say that last summer, in the Foča Municipality building, they signed a contract that took away their land for the construction of a new highway. Đendušić says that his family was taken away from about 2.800 square meters, of which a smaller part was undergrowth, and a larger part was an orchard with plums, walnuts and apples. He believes that the difference in compensation offered for the orchard compared to the undergrowth was insufficient, but adds that this classification of land was registered in the cadastre even before the war.
Their land, which was confiscated in the 1970s, is now used as a rafting camp. Before the war, the land along the Drina River was purchased by the company “Hidroelektrane na Drini” for the construction of the “Buk bijela” Hydroelectric Power Plant. At that time, plans were also made to build a new road, which is why a bridge was built in the Kopilovi settlement, which is now overgrown with forest.
The first rafting camp on the Drina River was founded in 1998, and today there are about 27 of them. Last year, the Foča Municipality Tourist Organization recorded over 21 reported overnight stays. Some municipal councilors believe that rafting camp owners do not report a large number of overnight stays. Thus, at one session of the Foča Municipal Assembly, a councilor presented the information that, after criticism, one camp reported almost four times more overnight stays than the previous year. This could also mean that there are far more vehicles on this road during the summer season than official data shows.
“Modernizing the road could improve traffic safety and facilitate access to rafting camps, which would potentially increase the number of visitors and contribute to the development of tourism,” says Spomenka Popadić from the Tourist Organization of the Municipality of Foča.
Unlike Bosnian and Herzegovina, Montenegrin rafters believe that the location of the new crossing is not an appropriate solution for the locals.
“If you come from Montenegro, say Plužine, and you want to come to Šćepan polje or some village there... you have to wait in line at the customs terminal,” says Jovan, the owner of a rafting camp from Montenegro.
"With the current queues, in the summer during the season and now during the holidays, it was about four kilometers."
Jovan believes that a joint border crossing on the Bosnian side would be a better solution not only for locals but also for rafters from both countries because there is enough space for connecting roads:
"So that neither they nor we wait."
The Ministry of Transport of Montenegro says that it is planned to build a border police checkpoint immediately after crossing the bridge, on the territory of Montenegro.
"The goal is to provide a functional and efficient solution that will not significantly disrupt existing activities, including tourist activities such as rafting," the cabinet of the Ministry of Transport of Montenegro told CIN-CG.
Bonus video:
