- A mammoth €157 million project to install optic fiber with special sensors that will monitor the condition of 100 railway and 150 road bridges across Greece.
- Work with George Patoulis, Apostolos Tzitzikostas and Kostas Bakoyannis.
- Why it is controlled by the Greek “Anti-Money Laundering Authority”, after being informed by the corresponding French authority (FIU), also known as “Tracfin”.
By Aris Hadjigeorgiou
They have left hundreds of bridges unmaintained for decades, at the mercy of time and weather conditions, and now, faced with the risk of collapse, they are rushing to install expensive systems to monitor their structural condition. The result? The same company that is running unopposed is permanently declared the winner of the tenders, while its main shareholder is being investigated in France and Greece for money laundering.
The company is Osmos, part of the business colossus built over decades by the Greek-French entrepreneur Paris Mouratoglou, active in construction and energy. According to absolutely reliable information, Mr. Mouratoglou is under the control of the Greek “Anti-Money Laundering Authority”, after being informed by the corresponding French authority (FIU), also known as “Tracfin”. It goes without saying that the ongoing audit has no predetermined outcome and cannot be a reason to exclude the Mouratoglou group’s companies from public procurement, as this requires an irrevocable conviction.
The largest tender won by Osmos a few days ago is for the installation of a fiber optic system with special sensors that will continuously monitor the structural condition of 100 railway and 150 road bridges throughout Greece. The money comes from the Recovery Fund and the project was awarded through the Technical Chamber of Greece at a total cost of 157 million euros. The contractor, along with Osmos, is Vodafone, which will be responsible for the transmission part of the data that will be collected by the sensors.
In recent months, in fact, Osmos has won several smaller projects related to bridges and the strain on public infrastructure caused by lack of maintenance and severe weather and flooding events. This was preceded, however, by an adventurous award from ERGOSE and other awards from the Region of Central Macedonia and the Region of Attica where again Osmos did not have any rival.
It is noted that all the above projects are currently far from the level of the other business activities of the Mοuratoglou group in Greece and abroad. Within the country, the Istanbul-born entrepreneur is active in the renewable energy sector through Eren Hellas, a subsidiary of Total Eren, which has as its main shareholders the Mοuratoglou family and Total Energies and was established six years ago following an agreement with the Total giant. Eren Hellas is in the top five companies that install wind farms nationwide, mainly in the Peloponnese and Central Greece with a total capacity of hundreds of megawatts, but also photovoltaic – some of which are in the Kozani area. The company also became known for its sponsorship of flood control projects in Northern Evia after the catastrophic fire in 2021.
The reasons why the French financial control authorities are delving into the financial activities of Paris Mouratoglou have not been disclosed but information on any suspicious banking and business activities is being sought. However, until now, the businessman has been widely welcomed in France as he has been closely linked for years to defense industry tycoon Dassault, which produces Rafals, and has had personal relationships with former President Nicolas Sarkozy, and his wife Carla Bruni, François Hollande and current French President Emmanuel Macron.
It is obvious that with such international and economic influence, Paris Mοuratoglou had no difficulty in entering the business of Greek Renewable Energy Sources, which is a privileged field for all the big groups.
But it seems that this has not prevented him from seeking a dynamic entry into a market worth hundreds of millions that is also related to Climate Crisis and Civil Protection. Only recently, the Minister of Infrastructure and Transport Christos Staikouras stated at the Economist conference that one of the three lines of action for dealing with the effects of natural disasters, with an initial 600 million in funding from the Recovery Fund, will be “the inspection and maintenance of existing projects with a view to enhancing their safety”.
He cited bridges as a specific example, saying that they are “an important part of our country’s structural wealth and account for 30% of construction costs while they represent only 2-3% of the total road network”.
The main and first tool of this project is the tender for the “Smart Bridges” mentioned above, which was recently commissioned by the Technical Chamber of Greece as a body supervised by the Ministry of Infrastructure and Transport. The tender was announced last April under the heavy shadow cast by the accident in Tempi and the closure of the bridge at Servia in Kozani.
It is recalled that on the occasion of the Tempi accident, the engineers who for months had been warning about the poor state of the network without being heard made it a condition for the restart of the railway that serious checks and rehabilitation works be carried out on dozens of aging bridges around Greece. The Osmos-Vodafone consortium came forward as the only interested party was audited, and got the job.
The 250 bridges are planned to be equipped in 28 months with special structural response measurement systems, and sensors/fiber optic technology that will measure and record information (displacements, vibrations, accelerations, etc.) in real-time using modern technological methods. It is assumed that the data will be collected by experts who will order preventive maintenance work. This means that the state will have to organize other contractors as the state lacks the necessary human resources.
Experts have been sounding the alarm for a while now about the structural problems of the bridges linked to aging structures, building them to older regulations in terms of strength and increasing loads. It is recalled that freight transport continues to be dominated by trucks, which often avoid modern motorways due to cost and opt for roads built decades ago.
The damage is exacerbated by seismic activity and the increasing momentum of the water where the bridges pass over water. But the biggest problem is the lack of systematic monitoring, maintenance, and upgrading of the structures.
According to reports, the Technical Chamber of Greece is preparing a second tender for similar systems on road bridges, which will initially include a primary inspection of the bridges and the creation of a database with all their characteristics and operating history. Subsequently, monitoring systems will be designed which will take into account the weight of this history.
ERGOSE
Five years before the award by the Technical Chamber of Greece, Osmos had undertaken a similar project through ERGOSE to install sensors on 14 major railway bridges in the Lianokladi-Domokos section. The project with a budget of 4.6 million euros was awarded in 2018 with a target to be completed within 9 months but has yet to be delivered.
On ERGOSE’s Diavgeia, decisions for partial payment of bills continue to be uploaded even now while, in the wake of the post-Tempi revelations about the long-running signaling and telecommand projects, there have been reports that a key shortcoming of the project for the 14 bridges was the absence of data transmission systems.
Region of Central Macedonia
Last summer, Osmos also signed a contract with the Region of Central Macedonia for the Supply, Installation, and Maintenance of intelligent systems for the instrumental monitoring of bridges and evaluation of their structural response under the operating loads of passing vehicles and early warning in emergency situations (earthquakes, floods, fires). The cost of the project is close to €1 million and the funding is also coming from the Recovery Fund.
A year earlier, the Region of Central Macedonia had again awarded another project to Osmos with a budget of 1.8 million euros entitled “Supporting actions for flood prevention and warning” under the flood protection projects.
The project again includes the installation of recording systems that will monitor water levels in rivers, rainfall, deformations, and accelerations in road pavements.
Region of Attica
The Region of Attica could not be absent from the dance of assignments, as it awarded last May to Osmos a project entitled “Structural Integrity Monitoring of Bridges” with a budget of 5.5 million euros.
The subject of this procurement is the installation and operation of instrumental monitoring systems for 22 engineering works-bridges within the area of responsibility of the Region of Attica as well as the proper operation of the system for the provision, transfer, and processing of data through which the load-bearing capacity of the bridges under the operating loads will be evaluated in real time during the two-year “good operation of all systems” period of the Contract.
Osmos has undertaken similar instrumental monitoring projects but with a much smaller financial content in recent years by the municipalities of Makrakomi and Moshatos-Tavros, which are facing problems with flooding phenomena.
Its first appearance was made in 2017 when it took over from the Region of Central Greece under K. Bakoyannis, the installation of systems for the structural monitoring of buildings on the coastal quay of Chalkida. Additionally, in 2020, the same company carried out measurements on the “cover” of the enclosed Ilissos River along Kallirrois Avenue. The measurements were conducted to assess the strength of the slab in order to initiate the tram routes that had been halted in 2018.
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