As the Czech political temperature heats up, the current ANO-led government in waiting is trying to make its case for a job well-done. The most recent example of this was a recent press conference in which the Minister of Transportation Dan Ťok claimed that 203 kilometers of motorways and first-class highways had been opened in 2014. Critics of the government, however, claim that the minister was including work that was completed on renovations of the existing D1 motorway. A more correct accounting of the government’s achievements, they claim would be 40 km of new motorways. “In the previous government period we were criticized for building slowly and not investing enough,” said Andrej Babiš. “I’m convinced that after today’s press conference it will be clear that this isn’t true.”
In fact, not everyone is convinced. Echo24.cz reports that a member of the transportation committee in the Czech parliament Jan Bauer has been drilling down into the numbers to show that they’re misleading. He cites a report by the Supreme Audit Office that shows that motorway construction has slowed to a pace of 16 km per year. The server also spoke with the former minister of transportation Antonín Prachar was brutal in his assessment of the government’s performance. “I don’t know where they’re getting these numbers,” he said, agreeing that the real number was closer to 40 km. He added that the government hasn’t dealt with the real problem, which is laws that make it difficult to get planning and approvals for investments of all types. “In this legal environment, you can’t even build a dog house.”
