US$ 318 million budget for Transnordestina

The program of the Ministry of National Integration disbursed US$ 318 million for the Transnordestina Railroad this year. The amount represents just over 69% of its US$ 461 million related to the share of the Investment Fund of the Northeast (Finor) in total sources of funds for the work. The official schedule of disbursements has been corrected and republished yesterday by the ministry in the Diario Oficial da Uniao. Now that the schedule is late – it is expected for 2012, as initially had been estimated for the second half of this year – Transnordestina only began to take form in the section that will connect the town of Salgueiro to the Port of Suape, earlier this month.

In an election year, a good deal of resources will always go down well. The amount accounted for 15.1% of the total project budget from US$ 3 billion. The three sections that pass through Pernambuco will receive all of their respective volumes of funds from Finor in 2010. There is nothing left for 2011. The biggest step, the Salgueiro-Suape, which is 522 kilometers long and will cost US$ 952 million, will receive nearly half the money: US$ 476 million. The recovery of the railroad that goes from the Port of Suape and will continue until the city of Porto Real do Colégio (AL) will also be honored with contributions. Best known as Tronco Sul, the line will have US$ 47 million. The value is the remainder of the total rightful portion of Finor. Last year, the railroad earned US$ 15.3 million for the reactivation of its 550 kilometers seriously damaged by a flood in 2001.

The section of Transnordestina that connects the towns of Salgueiro, in the Hinterland of Pernambuco, the Missao Velha, called on Cariri in Ceará, receives US$ 27 million. This was the first step for getting out of the paper in 2006. With around 160 km long, it has not been completed yet.

The Salgueiro-Eliseu Martins (PI) section, will get US$ 85.7 million of the amount. The resources of the line that connects Missao Velha to the Port of Pecem, also in Ceará, will be strengthened by US$ 16 million this year and US$ 126.7 million in 2011. Last week, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva met with the Minister of Transport Alfredo Nascimento, and the governors of Pernambuco, Eduardo Campos, and Piaui, Wellington Dias, to sign a commitment to accelerate the project.

Also present at the meeting, the business men of the concessionaire Transnordestina Logistica (formerly Companhia Ferroviária do Nordeste) and the contractor Odebrecht – in charge of physical works. It was a promise to start five sections of rail track still in January. At the Salgueiro Suape, it is expected that in June the works reaches its peak, with about seven thousand people employed.

The Transnordestina was designed in the nineteenth century, in the time of the Emperor Dom Pedro II. This railroad has 1728 kilometers and connects the city of Eliseu Martins in the South of Piauí, to the ports of Pecém (CE) and Suape. The railway is important for the economic development of the Northeast. It is of great impact to Pernambuco. It will increase, for example, the logistics of distribution of gypsum produced in the Hinterland of Araripe and facilitate the arrival of corn and soybeans to form the feed of animals reared by the farmers and pig farmers of the state.

Fonte: Jornal do Commercio