JUST days after Southeast Asia's longest tunnel opened to traffic in Vietnam, its operators said it will be shut down as the government had not paid its part of the cost.
The 6.2km Hai Van Tunnel 2 opened on Monday, connecting Thua Thien-Hue province and Da Nang City, but it will remain open only until Feb 20 for the Lunar New Year or Tet celebrations.
Deo Ca Group JSC, the private partner in the public-private partnership that built the tunnel, said it cost VND100 billion a year to operate the tunnel.
According to a Vn Express report, the company said it faced financial issues since it had not received the government's share of the VND8.52 trillion cost of construction.
This means it could not afford to keep the tunnel open after Lunar New Year, it said.
The Hai Van Tunnel 2 was seen as part of a public-private partnership master plan along with three other tunnels in the central region that will cost a total of VND21.61 trillion. The government's share is VND5 trillion.
The other three have been completed and opened to traffic, and the government had paid its share of the cost for two of them.
The government had yet to respond on the reasons for the payment delays.
Vietnamese usually travel to their hometowns to celebrate the Lunar New Year and major roads in the country would be congested during the period.
Hai Van Tunnel 2 was built to help reduce traffic in an existing tunnel located 30m away.
Deo Ca Group CEO Ngo Truong Nam said though the situation was undesirable, they were waiting for the authorities to resolve the finance issue.
Under the concessionaire agreement, the company had been allowed to collect toll at six stations for 27 years, but was later told it cannot do so on the La Son-Tuy Loan stretch of the expressway in Da Nang because it is a publicly funded highway.
Nam said though closing the tunnel would cause significant losses to the firm, it was left with no choice.