Julius Skačkauskas, deputy minister of transport and communications, said that the 784 million euros to be allocated for roads in next year’s government budget would be sufficient only to complete the ongoing projects, but not substantially improve the state of the country’s transport infrastructure.
The 11-percent reduction in funding compared to this year’s plan will not be enough to “tangibly improve the condition of roads in Lithuania”, he said.
“All the procurements have already been made. This budget is for the projects that have been contracted [...]. It is a fact that it [the funding] is insufficient and it is a pity that the base amount of the KPPP [Road Maintenance and Development Programme] is not increasing [...]. It will not be possible to tangibly improve the condition of roads throughout Lithuania because of this non-increase,” Skačkauskas told LRT RADIO on Thursday.
According to him, the reconstruction of the Via Baltica motorway and the Vilnius-Utena road alone will cost 317 million euros.
Further reading
Šarūnas Frolenka, head of the Lithuanian Roads Association, also said that once the started projects are finished, there will not be enough money to start new ones.
“What is foreseen is money to implement and complete projects that have already been contracted [...]. If there is only so much money left, there are no new projects at all for next year,” said Frolenka.
According to the deputy minister, the Transport Ministry has prepared a priority list of the country’s gravel roads to be paved, but work is unlikely to start yet.
He said that the funds currently available will allow to start design works for the upgrade of some gravel roads.
Finance Minister Gintarė Skaistė said on Wednesday that next year’s road funding is expected to fall because of lower proceeds from the bank windfall profit tax, used to fund military infrastructure this year. However, she added, funds for roads will be available for borrowing, so the final amount will not be known until the second half of 2025.
Moreover, Skaistė said, European funding for the reconstruction of the Vilnius-Utena road will increase next year, so less money will be needed from the national budget for this project.
With the Ministry of Transport, municipalities and road builders asking for between one and two billion euros in annual funding for road maintenance and upgrades, the finance minister said the best way to allocate the resources would be through a separate fund.
An Infrastructure Fund is to be set up next year to allocate 1 billion euros between 2025 and 2027 to the defence industry, maritime, airport, rail and energy infrastructure, public-private partnership projects and data centres, with the support of the government, the national development body Investments for the Lithuanian Economy and private investors.
Next year’s government budget bill, published on Wednesday, foresees 563.2 million euros from the KPPP for roads, a 3.4-percent reduction compared to the 583 million euros in 2024.
A further 59.1 million euros for military mobility links will come from the new Defence Fund, down 57.7 percent (139.8 million this year), while 161.2 million, up 1.3 percent (159 million), will come from European Union funds.
According to the Ministry of Transport and Communications, this year’s actual allocations for roads total 936 million euros, but around one billion billion will be used from all sources.
The deteriorating state of Lithuania’s roads has in recent year become a subject of much public discussion. Transport Minister Marius Skuodis has said on several occasions that to substantially improve the quality of public roads would require around 1.3 billion euros annually.
At the same time, according to the Association of Lithuanian Municipalities, road infrastructure would need almost 2 billion euros in investment by 2030.
Newsletter
Every Friday morning.
