Portugal's former prime minister, Pedro Passos Coelho, was in the Algarve over the weekend in a vain attempt to position himself as the region’s champion over the Via do Infante tolls situation.
Tolls were introduced by the Passos Coelho coalition government amid howls of complaint from the Algarve’s road users who rightly pointed out that the motorway had largely been built using EU funds and was constructed to improve the region’s economy by speeding the journey time between east and west.
Passos Coelho remarked that last August’s reduction in toll fees was the 'bare minimum' following the renegotiation undertaken by his government and that the socialists should have dropped the toll fees by 30% to 35%, rather than the 15% implemented.
"The PS Government has kept to the minimum of minimums," when reducing tolls, moaned the former PM, observing that the driver pays less but the government gets more as there was an increase in road use.
Passos Coelho said he would have reduced the tolls when in government but this would have been close to the general election and he did not want people to think that he was just buying votes.
"We had everything ready to move forward but, as I said at the time, we would not do it given the proximity of the elections," said the politician, adding that he had always refused to use his position to obtain electoral dividends but accuses the socialists of doing as the council elections are happening this autumn.
As for the percentage reduction in toll fees, the current president of the PSD says he would not suggest a figure because this would have depended on the way cars were treated in relation to freight traffic.
Pedro Passos Coelho went on to state that he would suspend the tolls during the EN125 roadworks between Vila do Bispo and VRSA - even though he did not suspend tolls when the roadworks started between Lagos and Faro when he was in power.
Passos Coelho is still pro-tolls under the right wing mantra of ‘user pays’, ignoring the fact that in this case the user pays and then the taxpayer pays again by shelling out for a subsidy to the concession holder to compensate it the inevitable drop in traffic volume.
The amnesic former PM said he was all for levying charges on the former SCUT roads under the ‘user-pays’ principle, but says there should be discounts in depressed areas and on roads which 'were not paid for with Portuguese taxpayers' money, such as the Via do Infante, which was paid largely by European Union funds.
