Bolsheokhtinsky Bridge opens despite debt problems

<BR>This Saturday Bolsheokhtinsky bridge is scheduled to be reopened after it was closed several years ago for reconstruction. With the completion of the bridge, the Committee for Public Services and Road Management (KBDK), the government organization responsible for bridge reconstruction, has dug itself into a 50-billion ruble hole. Due to the extent of the debt, opening of the bridge could be delayed. Workers of one organization subcontracted by KBDK, GorElektroTrans (GET), have completely stopped work on the bridge and gone on strike. GET is in charge of installing electric cables above the bridge and part of Tulskaya street. According to GET general manager, Yuri Obyshkin, during the last six months of work KBDK has paid only for the cable itself which cost 250 mln rubles. Neither construction equipment rental nor labor had yet been paid, he said. He has asked KBDK to pay out another 300 mln rubles so that his company can complete their job. However, administrators of KBDK claimed that it is GET which owes them money. We have paid them for everything, but they (GET) refuse to work, complained the chief official in charge of the bridge project at KBDK, Nikolai Fyodorov. Director of GET, Yuri Gorlin, came to his organization s defense. Gorlin said that GET has already carried out other projects on Chkalovsky Prospect, Prospect Obukhovskoy Oborony and at other locations which bring the city s total debt owed to his company to approximately 4.5 billion rubles.