The president of Loulé council, Vítor Aleixo, held a press conference yesterday to say how unhappy he is with the head of the former Estradas de Portugal* company, António Ramalho and he reckons the Algarve has been conned.
Aleixo is one of the three mayors who at least stood alongside protestors on the windswept Guadiana bridge in February to protest about the motorway tolls but his complaint now goes deeper as the extent of the government’s duplicity becomes clear.
"The Algarve and its businesses have been deceived."
The mayor is highly critical that "more than a third of the actual work" that was on the EN125 renewal programme mysteriously has evaporated and that overall "the work has changed profoundly, it has been watered down from the original plan - the Algarve has been deceived."
"The difficult financial situation the country cannot be a reason for everything."
The original plan was a €250 million spend to upgrade the EN125 across the region. This was the inducement to get the mayors to accept the motorway tolls. This tactic worked and the road upgrade programme then was cancelled by the government 'on cost grounds.'
Aleixo argues that this week’s opening of the Faro bypass, which may be open but remains unfinished according to the original plan, is no more than a cosmetic exercise and that the EN125 will continue to justify its name - ‘the road of death.’
The government’s much publicised renegotiation with the financiers behind the highly lucrative PPP arrangement for the Algarve Litoral roadworks programme has led to much of the essential work on the EN125 quietly being shelved, while hoping that nobody will notice.
In the case of Aleixo’s Loulé, the mayor reeled off road works that were on the original list covering Patã, Boliqueime, Vilamoura, Quatro Estradas, Loulé, Quarteira with work either not started or started, stopped and now lying abandoned.
Aleixo suggested that the drop in investment in the Algarve’s creaking road system is due entirely to the renegotiated PPP Algarve Litoral deal which the government announced had saved the taxpayer money, despite there being no adjustment in the high interest rates being charged. Something had to give and it now is clear that the EN125 roadworks will suffer accordingly.
Aleixo point out also that a good part of the sums ‘saved’ by the government may end up being paid out as compensation to the contractors who now will not be working on the EN125 and other of the Algarve’s roads.
Commenting on the government’s headline savings, Aleixo said "The Portuguese taxpayer will have to pay out €929 million by 2024 as part of this ‘renegotiation’ when supposedly the goal was to reduce costs. This is far too high considering that many roadworks have been cancelled as a result of this renegotiation."
In respect of the €4.2 million announced by Estradas de Portugal for some roadworks to restart ‘as early as August’ which is nearly over, the Loulé mayor said that these funds "will not solve the structural problems that the EN125 has."
"It is not worth making announcements like these, it is nothing more than pulling the wool over the eyes of the Algarve’s businesses and its public. These press releases about finding are simply designed to silence public opinion in the Algarve. The roadworks that will be carried out are minor and nothing like what originally was planned. The EN125 will continue to be a road with a high accident rate where we will continue to see many deaths."
Aleixo’s solution for the government to "honour the commitment to the Algarve," is to end the tolls on the Via do Infante.
"The commitments established by the Portuguese state should not be just for the benefit of utilities, commitments also must be honoured for the Algarve and for the businesses that operate in our region," said Aleixo.
On the position of the other Algarve mayors that so far have kept quiet on this matter, Victor Aleixo said that when the mayors get to see the slimmed down version of the road repair and building programme, they can decide how to react.
If the mayors react along party lines as they have in the past, it will be business as usual with the feelings of the electorate ignored for political short-term gain.
* Estradas de Portugal merged with national railways company RENFE to form 'Infraestruturas de Portugal' in June 2015, spending €170,000 on the launch party. http://www.algarvedailynews.com/news/5967-taxpayer-funds-170-000-cost-savings-party
