Second Building for Media Workers to Cost 3 Million Manat More

President Ilham Aliyev allocated AZN 3 million from the Reserve Fund of the President in the state budget of 2014 for the continuation of the construction of a residential building for journalists, to which he had previously allocated more than 31 million manat. Now the building will cost taxpayers more than 34.6 million AZN and one apartment of less than 100 square meters will cost an average of 136 thousand manat.

This is the second in a row building (3 blocks, 255 flats) for media professionals, which is scheduled to be commissioned for the National Press Day - 22 July 2015.

The decision to build a second residential building for journalists was actually taken on the National Press Day in 2013, when President Ilham Aliyev previously allocated 5 million AZN to the State Fund for Media Development (SFMD) under the President of AR for the construction of a 17-storey building (http://www.president.az/articles/8743). In the same year a contract was signed with the company Arxin-M Ltd on the design of the building in the amount of AZN 215,425.89. In 2014, the State Fund also signed a contract with the local construction company Portos for the “turnkey” construction of the building. The amount of the contact was 31 466 860.71 manat, the State Procurement Agency said.

The government does not disclose other sources of financing the construction of the building for journalists. This may be either a reserve fund of the Cabinet of Ministers in the state budget or funds earmarked for the state capital building in the same "purse", experts say.

The second residential building for media workers is built next to the first one, which was commissioned in 2013. The first building consisted of 156 apartments. According to the SFMD report (http://kivdf.gov.az/news), AZN 22,396,316 was spent on the construction of the building and repair of the apartments. The construction work was as well carried out by the construction company Portos. The initial amount of the contract, according to the results of the tender, was 16,902,602.74 manat. The project “gained weight” by no less than 5.5 million manat.

Note that the name of this company cannot be found anywhere except in the construction of two buildings for journalists. According to the Ministry of Taxes (the state agency for registration of commercial entities), LLC Portos was established by an individual (Gafar Gafarov) with a registered capital of 50 manat in September 2009. --08B--