EFFORTPOST Montenegro's 1 Billion Dollar road to - perhaps the most wasteful Infrastructure Megaproject in human History.

Greetings Dramatards

I've covered before the apocalyptic mismanagement and nation-ruining wasteful spendings of governments in megaprojects for Infrastructure before. A week ago, I had made a longpost about the squanderous and wasteful spending which the govs of South Africa and Brasilia had undergone with regards to the spendings on their respective Soccer world Cups of 2010 and 2014, ESPECIALLY the monumental testaments to pride and waste which was the budgets of ALL of their newly built stadiums for both nations.

The crux of the matter having been that most of these newly built stadiums were way too large and grand and costly, and would never be used to their full capacity post-Soccer World Cup; and would be drains upon the economies of both nations, never even coming close to recuperating the construction costs in the ensuing years.

I've also covered other forms of severe mental r-sluration in the form of Mozambique corrupt government officials loaning much much more money internationally, than which the nation state was capable of paying back - and worse, squandering these loans on useless enterprises which added nothing towards the functional economy of Mozambique, thus disasterously straddling the poor Southern African nation with massive international debts for bullshit which never had contributed towards the nation's economic growth, plunging the nation into an inflation crises, just 20 years after their apocalyptic Civil War. Of all the african states below the equator, our poor mozambique neighbours have had the hardest lot so far.

It's because of my familiarity with these governmental waste and corruption in infrastructure-development, both by local ANC South Africans r-slurs, and foreign Chinese tomfrickery around Southern African Infrastructure deals with corrupt african nations, that I thought I knew the depths of depravity with regards to the most profound mental r-sluration in governmental spendings waste in all things construction related.

But Ohhhhhhh boi, never have I seen such levels of reckless insanity than when I read an afrikaans article this weekend covering the corruption, stupidity and foolishness of the 1 Billion Dollar National Road superproject undertaken by the small european state of Montenegro - because this has got to be most 3rd world corrupt dictator Infrastructure r-sluration I have seen from any european or asian state to date.

The only even remote comparison in terms of arrogance and stupidity, has got to be when the dictator (Mobutu Sese Seko) of the African state of Zaire (Congo), went to to the absolute spectacle of building a fricking private Jet runway in the middle of the oppressive Congo Jungle, so that he could flew his private between Paris and back, basically bankrupting the treasury of his significantly poorer nation. I made a longpost few moths ago.

https://rdrama.net/post/213553/dictator-of-zaire-built-a-private

MONTENEGRO:

So for those of you like me who knows precious little about Montenegro (translated as the land of the Black Mountain/mountains), it is one of the Balkan micro-states, which pretty much sums up their scope of corruption. It used to be part of Yugoslavia, and was the last group to frick off and declare independence in 2006, where they were until then, the most loyal group to daddy Serbia throughout all of the genocidal breakups of Yugoslavia.

Montenegro's population is very tiny, clocking at a mere 620 000 people, although the common citizen is above average in terms of wealth for the Balkan standard. This is worthy of taking note of just so that you guys can appreciate the magnitude of WallStreetBets levels of degeneracy which will take place. This is a tiny micro state, with a tiny population, with very little in the way of political power or natural resources to fall back to.

Even the profound r-sluration of dictator Mobutu would do less to frick over Zaire in comparison, as the Congo has always been a fantastically resource rich country, but unfortunately too straddled with over two centuries of ethnic strife and political instability to take any advantage of such. Montenegro has NO such resources.

LAND OF THE BLACK MOUNTAIN:

The 1st thing we all need to know about Montenegro is that it is as mountainous as Tibet, with some of the most rugged terrain in the entirety of the european continent. Deep ravines and gorges dot the landscape as frequently as the cliffs of its mountains, which range from 2000-2500 meters above sea level.

https://www.britannica.com/place/Montenegro

To put into perspective for myself just how incredibly fricking sloping this tiny fricking land is, I had to compare the average height of South Africa. The average elevation in RSA is a mere 1030m above sea level, with the interior of the Free State ranging from from 1300m above sea level on the "Inland Plateu" where RSA evens out in terms of its sloping upwards drastically from the Eastern and western shores. The highest average elevation above sealevel ranges from 1500m-1600m above sea level. But to realize that elevation usually takes about 1500km from the nearest port or beach.

Meanwhile our friendly micro state of Montenegro achieves fricking 2000m above sea level in the span of just 40 fricking kilometers - now that's a very hilly country!

And more significantly, is the main reason for you Dramatards to understand why - since 2022 - Montenegro houses the most expensive stretch of highway on the entire fricking planet.

THE A1 HIGHWAY:

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-billion-dollar-chinese-highway/32217524.html

"Valued as one of the world's most expensive roads, the first 41 kilometers opened in July 2022 and cuts through Montenegro's soaring mountains and over its deep gorges, with an estimated 60 percent of the highway made up only of tunnels and bridges. For a toll fee of 3.50 euros ($3.75), a previously arduous journey north has been turned into a roughly 25-minute trip along freshly paved asphalt until the stretch of road peters out at Matesevo"

The A1 Highway as this newly built road would be called, stretched for 41km, and would a testament to modern engineering, and the marvels of construction. It is in a vacuum absolutely impressive, and probably one of the greatest engineering feats ever accomplished by man. 20 Bridges make part of this 41km stretch, alongside 16 tunnels carved right trough several mountains. Trust me, me there is nothing on the entirety of the African continent which can be compared to the fantastical scope of this engineering mega project.

However, that might be for good reason.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/05/07/the-billion-dollar-motorway-leading-montenegro-to-nowhere

40 bridges and 90 tunnels had been expected to be built and financed by the Chinese. "However, the project has been hit by corruption allegations, construction delays and environmental tragedies. Today, out of the planned 170 kilometres, just 40 have been completed."

BACKGROUND:

The story starts with Montenegro's former Prime Minister and current President, Milo Đukanović. He conceived the motorway to boost trade in the small Balkan country.

Our boy Milo was a fast believer in the development of tourism and privatisation, and he and his supporters believed that economically linking the port city of Bar with Beljare (border town with Serbia), the route of A1 would economically link Serbia and Montenegro, so Serbia would have access to a short saltwater port road, and Montenegro would share within the trade inland.

The idea of the A1 Highway, was that SUPPOSEDLY it would transform the microstate as one of the most important transport hubs from the Mediterranean to the Balkans, while also allowing tourists easy and cheap inland access.

2ndly due to the extremely mountainous terrain of Montenegro, the very closest highway inside Montenegro between Bar and Beljare was a vast 180km detour, along dirtroads and winding cliffside roads, notorious amongst the locals for their constant fatalities in people falling off of the precarious steep thoroughfares.

So the notion of somehow connecting the interior of Montenegro with its coasts via bridges or tunnels or some form of road infrastructure wasn't a new hairbrained scheme, it has always been a talking point for many of the Montenegrins.

However, it was the financing and feasibility of modern highways within the rugged terrain of Montenegro, which would put this conceptual idea into the r-slur zone.

THE VAST COST ESTIMATES:

Montenegro would have several foreign companies carry out feasibility studies about the viability of trans mountainous highway constructions.

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20211126-montenegro-s-billion-dollar-road-to-nowhere

"In 2009 and 2012, a British consultancy ('Scott Wilson', later 'URS UK Limited') carried out two feasibility studies. The indicators suggested that the ambitious Bar-Boljare motorway project was not economically viable. These studies, made public by the current government in November 2021, were kept under wraps by the previous government."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html

The Frogs engineers would also be called in to do a feasibility study.

=====(from nytimes article)

A 2012 study led by a British company for Montenegro's Ministry of Transport warned that construction costs would be unusually high because of the mountainous terrain. Even so, its cost estimates were considerably lower than the more than $900 million charged by the China Road and Bridge Corporation to build the 25-mile, but particularly difficult, stretch of the highway.

An earlier feasibility study, in 2007, by Louis Berger, an engineering company in Paris, warned that traffic along the proposed highway would not be “high enough to justify” investment “from a purely financial basis.” But it added that “social, political and economic” factors “should be considered before making a decision on whether to continue with the proposed program.”

even yanks gave a go

When Mr. Djukanovic first floated the idea, several foreign companies, including Bechtel, the American engineering and construction giant, expressed an interest. Bechtel proposed a more modest and less costly project but lost out to a more expansive and far more expensive proposal from China Road and Bridge Corporation.

=====(end)

Basically all of these fricking westoid companies kept giving the corrupt Montenegro gov officials dire and pessimistic declarations about the viability, or at least the economic viability, regarding the construction of such an ambitious project as constructing a Superhighway in the incredibly challenging terrain of Mentenegro's mountains. The yanks even went to great degrees to tell our r-slurred slavs to approach the project with a more modest budget or objectives in mind, and proposed a much cheaper alternative, though I couldn't find any articles as to what exactly that entailed.

But our Boy Milo and his corrupt Admin didn't wanna hear about it They wanted their fricking Superhighway!!!

So our class of clowns looked elsewhere for support.

THE BELT AND ROAD:

It was during this timeframe in which Winnie the Pooh, our glorious and impeccable Chinese leader Xi Jinping, would embark upon the most ambitious collective group of engineering projects ever attempted in recorded human history - Beijing's Belt and Road Initiative, the globe-spanning infrastructure initiative launched in 2013.

Basically, it attempts to build global infrastructure all around the 3rd world, particularly over Central and Eastern Africa, as well as between the Middle East and SEA. The idea is to recreate a modern incarnation of the old Silk Road of the middle ages. China would build or loan to these other 3rd world countries to build transport infrastructure like roads, railways and harbours, to facilitate the ability to transport goods between China, and the various 3rd world nations, thus expanding China's influence and favorable prestige from these future grateful client states

The Belt and Road initiative has been a perpetual slapfight between wingucks and r-slurs about whether it's actually a good thing in the long run, especially for the very poor nation states whom had gratefully accepted these loans and constructions from bid daddy Xi.

The anti-West and Anti-american wingcucks who hate burgerland and european influence basically support this blindly as a good alternative influences from a superpower capable of opposing the rancid cucks of Burgerland. The neoliberal cucks from the west opposes this as they dont trust china, and believe that any influence that China has is bad, because china is bad. Opinion on these vast nation state sized loans are also complex and divided.

Western nations and more western oriented international organizations like the IMF have been extremely reluctant and hesitant to loan too much money or resources to places like Africa before. The largest private banks need to estimate the risks involved in any loaning endeavor, and often balk at the notion of risking loans of any substance to 3rd world dictator shitholes, or corrupt kleptocracies.

On the other hand, we've seen what happens when nefarious banks loan recklessly to those who didn't have the capacity to pay back in the 1st place. When Credit Suisse fricked over Mozambique by overloaning to corrupt officials who spent the loans on personal gratification, instead of investing in public infrastructure. Thus, basically the rich 1st world have done very little comparitively when it came to financing African countries via economic loans, as the risks were always seen as outweighting the rewards.

But the Chinese have had no such qualms. So in 2014, in addition to the construction contract, the Montenegrin government at the time also signed a contract with the state-owned Chinese Exim Bank for a loan worth close to one billion US dollars.

R-SLURRED LOAN CONDITIONS: FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK FRICK

But from the very fricking onset of the loan, and the project signatures, there was massive perpetual drama and controversy.

First of all our galaxy brained frickwits of Milo's Admin would take out a loan in Burger dollars $, meaning they had no currency control of the loan they were taking out from China. They use Euros, but took the fricking loan in dollars, thus they had no control of foreign currency swings in the half decade, which is partially to blame for the massively inflated budget from 2014-2022.

But it gets WORSE: The contract signed with Beijing was both horrifying, and shockingly steriotypical of what anti-China neoliberals have come to view the Belt-And-Road "debt trap" policy of China has been towards developing African nations. It granted China the fricking right to seize land in Montenegro in the event of defaults, because chinese banks gave really really good loan interest rates compared to the westoids.

This fricking draconian clause was so feared by Milo's Admin to make them look bad (which it fricking did), that they fricking declared the contract with Chinaland as state secrets!

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20211126-montenegro-s-billion-dollar-road-to-nowhere

=====(from france24 article)

Montenegro got the loan for its motorway, but at what price? Article 8.1 of the contract states that Montenegro "waives any immunity on the grounds of sovereign or otherwise for itself or its property" if it fails to repay the loan. Also, any arbitration would take place in a Chinese court. Several media outlets have speculated that Article 8.1 could allow China to gain control of Montenegro's territorial assets, like the port of Bar on the Adriatic Sea.

=====(end article)

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-billion-dollar-chinese-highway/32217524.html

======(from rferl artice)

Because Podgorica didn't hedge against currency swings and failed to include a turnpike in its original plans, the cost of the project continued to soar over the years, leading to the current debt problem and the ballooned $1 billion price tag attached to the first stretch of the highway.

The project was also controversial from the start among local civil-society groups and the country's opposition, with the Network for Affirmation of the Nongovernmental Sector (MANS), a Balkan watchdog organization, raising corruption and transparency concerns over how construction contracts were distributed to Chinese and local companies.

Questions over total cost and how the project would generate revenue have also followed the highway since its conception. Under a new government in 2021, Montenegro's Capital Investments Ministry published two previously confidential international feasibility studies, which suggest that the estimated cost of the first phase of the highway was greatly exaggerated. One of those studies, compiled by British consultancy Scott Wilson Group, said it should cost $570 million, a little more than half of the current cost.

Environmental concerns also followed its construction, with CRBC accused of damaging sections of the riverbank along the UNESCO-protected Tara River traversed by the highway, which Montenegro's Nature and Environmental Protection Agency (NEPA) said was raised with the Chinese builders, but ignored.

======(end quote)

In fact it was believed that China only really enabled this 1 Billion Dollar loan in the 1st place (it wasn't even 1 Billion from the start, it just ballooned its way up to there!!!), and released their engineers and workers towards the Balkans, specifically because they saw a geopolitical strategic position, in them placing themselves as economic benefactors of Montenegro, while also placing themselves into a position of leverage, should the r-slurs fail to pay up - giving China a toehold in the Balkans, a locality just on the precipice of Europe, while remaining outside of the influence of the EU. (at least at the onset of the construction of the A1 in 2014)

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html

=====(from Nyt article)

A 2014 loan agreement with Exim Bank of China, a state lender, has been made public — and it revealed that China could seize property in the event of default as it did in Sri Lanka, where it grabbed the main port after the country fell behind on a Chinese loan. But nearly all other documents relating to the Montenegrin highway have been classified as secret.

When Mr. Djukanovic first floated the idea, several foreign companies, including Bechtel, the American engineering and construction giant, expressed an interest. Bechtel proposed a more modest and less costly project but lost out to a more expansive and far more expensive proposal from China Road and Bridge Corporation.

Robert Gelbard, the Clinton administration's Balkans envoy, recalled advising Mr. Djukanovic that he should be wary of hiring the Chinese company, telling him that Poland had recently canceled its own highway contract with another Chinese firm and was suing it over shoddy work.

======(end quote)

As the news of corruption broke, and wistleblowers leaked the horrifying details to the press and public of Montenegro, a frenzy would grow to tank Milo's party and popularity.

https://www.euronews.com/my-europe/2021/05/07/the-billion-dollar-motorway-leading-montenegro-to-nowhere

=====(from euronews article)

An NGO backed by the EU is investigating corruption allegations involving subcontractors. Dejan Milovac is part of the team digging the dirt on the motorway project. Out of the huge loan from China, 400 million euros were given to subcontractors. Milovac says some are linked to the President.

He tells us that "there was no public procurement procedure for the subcontractors. Most of the project was declared as a state secret. All the benefits that CRBC receives, such as not paying VAT, or no taxes on labor, or no customs on imported goods, was also applied to the subcontractors with absolutely no control". According to him, this creates "a huge opportunity for corruption".

More and more citizens are fed up with corruption in Montenegro. Last year they voted in a new government. Today's Deputy Prime Minister, Dritan Abazović, has a solid reputation as a fighter for transparency, a precondition to bring Montenegro closer to the European Union.

Some fear that China has its eyes on Bar's deep-water harbour. When signing the billion-dollar-loan with China, Montenegro agreed to some strange terms, like giving up sovereignty of certain parts of the land in the case of financial problems. Arbitration in this scenario would take place in China using Chinese laws.

=====(end quote)

THE SCOPE OF WASTE:

Now a couple of rich yanks and fat Canadians will very likely chime in the background that the shitty sewer system or underground subway of New York's newest 15 centimeter stretch of development in 2023 alone costs annually 1 Billion dollars $$$, but it is important to grasp the context of this situation - Montenegro is by global standards poor as dirt, even if their country is cleanly built.

Montenegro has a mere GDP of 5,86 Billion $ (by 2022). Thus, the final estimates of the finished unfinished 41km of Highway would tally into the realm of 15-20% of the micro-nation's entire annual income, good God.

The biggest problem was that this giant fricking massive 41km engineering mega project.....stopped at the tiny village of Matesevo, with a population of 100 peeps. Thus, instead of the original dream of having a 160km superhighway connecting the Interior of the Balkans with the Mediterranean, and connecting the Montenegro port of Bar with the Serbian border town of town Boljare, which everyone had been dreaming of since fricking 2014, our foolish idiots now basically sat straddled with a 41km overengineered highway which ended to a village with fricking 100 peeps MONEY WELL SPENT

"While many locals along the road say that the highway was busy in the summer, nearly six months after its launch the traffic appears to be light. Many roadside signs that show icons advertising shops, water, gas, and other services in rest stops are also now crossed out, highlighting a lower-than-expected demand."

In fact many wonder if the remaining 120km of the originally intended 160km Superhighway from Bar to Boljare will even ever be constructed, or even attempted, as our boy Milo would lose the election in 2023, with a new Administration in power which shows little interest in continuing the madness of this Superhighway, and incurring even further levels of unassailable debt.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html2

"Montenegro's new prime minister, Zdravko Krivokapic, who took over late last year from the government that signed the road and loan contracts with China in 2014, described the highway as a “megalomaniac project” that “goes from nowhere to nowhere” and badly strained his country's finances."

ATTEMPTS TO PAY BACK:

You guys are beginning to understand why I would personally designate this particular project as the most wasteful Infrastructure vanity megaproject in human history. Because certainly there have been much larger construction endeavors across the world from superpowers like Russia in their railways, and Burgerland and their dams, or Europe and their collection of fabulous subways. But even among historic r-slur projects like Stalin's mad 5-year plans, or even the behemoth Belt-And-Road turbo mega projects in Africa, like the highways in Kenya or Mongolia, never before had there been such a moronic level of economic self-sabotage for so fricking little that I'm aware of.

But yet again, in the most 3rd world way imaginable, it keeps getting worse and worse. The EU and Burgerland had to literally step in and save Montenegro from themselves, by financing a joint international loan to Montenegro at a lower interest rate, just so that Montenegro doesn't lose sovereignty over its own fricking ports to China, to which it WILLINGLY abided to when signing secret contracts under Milo's corrupt admin, holy actual jumping fricking shitballs "Montenegro says it needs help from the European Union to pay off a whopping $1 billion Chinese loan for a controversial road project that has left the Balkan country in a dire financial situation."

https://www.france24.com/en/tv-shows/reporters/20211126-montenegro-s-billion-dollar-road-to-nowhere

"In July 2021, the Montenegrin Finance Ministry reached an agreement with three Western banks to convert the Chinese loan from US dollars to euros, cutting the interest rate from 2% to 0.88%. The Finance Minister, Milojko Spajic, says this move will save Montenegro 8 million euros a year and so reduce the risk of default."

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/14/world/europe/montenegro-highway-china.html

=======(from nyt article)

"The financing, however, has caused severe headaches for Montenegro. A loan provided by Eximbank to fund the project was denominated in dollars, which made Montenegro, which uses the euro, vulnerable to the vagaries of foreign exchange markets. Interest was set at 2 percent a year, far higher than what European lenders usually charge for infrastructure loans.

“It was a horrible deal, obviously,” said Milojko Spajic, Montenegro's new finance minister. He recently negotiated a so-called swap deal with European and American banks that effectively converted the Chinese dollar loan to euros with an interest rate of .87 percent. Montenegro made its first payment on the Chinese loan last month and, Mr. Spajic said, will not default.

======(end quote)

https://thediplomat.com/2024/01/montenegros-scandal-ridden-chinese-road/

=====(from the diplomat article)

"Yet the Chinese loan from the costs of the highway has saddled the country with debt and nearly resulted in economic collapse, until Montenegro received restructured financing relief from European and U.S. banks. The debts amounted to more than a third of the government's annual budget."

Montenegro is not alone; other BRI members have struggled to manage the loans issued under the Belt and Road framework. According to Euronews, Argentina, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malaysia, Montenegro, Pakistan, and Tanzania are all dealing with extreme debt-to-GDP ratios that force crippling decisions in order to service the debt.

As Carla Freeman of the United States Institute of Peace wrote, “But now a lot of these [BRI] countries are saddled with immense debt and are having challenges repaying that debt. Also, they faced problems with forced resettlement of populations with often consequences for the stability of their countries. Environmental degradation has been associated with a lot of these projects. And so now that the hype is over, there's a lot more international scrutiny.”

======(end quote)

That's right frickers, ONE 3RD of the country's fricking annual budget is paying back debt !!1!

https://www.rferl.org/a/montenegro-china-billion-debt-highway/31203309.html

==========(from article)

China holds approximately one-quarter of Montenegro's total debt, which reached 103 percent of GDP last year, and if Podgorica defaults on its loan the contract for the road project gives China the possibility to access land and assets in the Balkan country as collateral.

According to the current contract with the Export-Import Bank of China, the first loan payments are due in July.

The stakes are now high for both Brussels and Podgorica (the capital of the Montenegroes r-slurs)

=========(end)

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

A1 HIGHWAY TOLL:

https://www.npr.org/2021/06/28/1010832606/road-deal-with-china-is-blamed-for-catapulting-montenegro-into-historic-debt

Also apparently so few fricking vehicles use the darn road on a daily basis, that they cant even accrue the speculated annual 77 million euros needed to maintain the darn thing, as too few toll money is collected.

As a consequences of this road, the gov of Montenegro was forced to raise taxes, and cut public social spending. Yet in spite of all of this stunning r-sluration, is that the local inhabitants of Montenegro have a generally positive view of the new road, and optimism about its capacity to economically aid the country.

BUT WORSE

The fricking fricking fricking Montenegro gov are STILL in talks with China to CONTINUE building the bloody road!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

https://balkaninsight.com/2023/07/12/chinas-crbc-keen-to-build-montenegrin-highways-next-stretch/

Holy hells these people really are the BIPOCs of europe

Anyways that's all I got, Good day!

@A