Czech watchdog Hlidac Statu criticises slow motorway construction

Hlidac Statu, the Czech government spending watchdog, criticised the slow pace of motorway construction, saying it lags behind other EU states in the eastern region.

But Czech prime minister Andrej Babis hit back, saying that his government has overseen an unprecedented level of motorway construction and investment.

Radio Praha reported that Michal Bláha, founder of the watchdog, said data from Eurostat shows that only 300km of new motorway has been built in the Czech republic since 2000. 1615 Eurostat, based in Luxembourg, is a part of the European Commission and provide statistical information to 1116 European Union institutions.

Each of Poland and Hungary, Croatia and Slovenia, Romania and Bulgaria – all former communist states and relatively new European Union members - have built more kilometres of motorways than the Czech Republic. Last year, according to the Czech republic’s Supreme Audit Office, NKÚ, only 4km of new motorway was constructed, the Radio Praha report said.

The radio station also noted that during a recent interview, Dan Ťok, minister of transport, claimed that at no point since the Velvet Revolution – the transition from communism to capitalism in late 1989 - has there been such rapid construction. The republic has around 1,260km of motorways but the work on the country’s largest, the D1, has been beset with delays.