The Algarve deputy of PS Miguel Freitas this Friday highlighted the importance of the Government moving forward with the creation of a special regime of exception to the Public Contracting Code, aiming at the quick access of victims of forest fires in the region to the financial support provided by the Executive , within the scope of the 1st phase of the work to recover the burned areas.
Miguel Freitas was speaking following the intervention of the deputies of the PS Parliamentary Group with the Deputy Minister and of Parliamentary Affairs, to whom they questioned about the Government's intention to proceed with this measure and when the Council of Ministers resolution that allows its creation .
In the question presented to the Government, signed by all deputies of the PS GP, the parliamentarians consider that, since the Government has not decreed a state of public calamity - which prevents triggering the special regime for contracting public works, the beginning of the 1st phase of interventions foreseen in the evaluation report of the impacts on forest areas, resulting from the forest fire in Catraia (Tavira), prepared by the inter-ministerial commission, is “seriously conditioned”, if an exception regime for public procurement is not created.
"There is a set of works to stabilize slopes, preserve water lines and restore infrastructure, which must move forward immediately, at the risk of a substantial worsening of the effects of fires in these areas of great economic and environmental importance", emphasizes Miguel Freitas, who emphasizes the need for the Government to streamline the process of approving applications for the Rural Development Program (ProDeR).
This is a concern also presented by Socialist Parliamentarians to the Deputy Minister for Parliamentary Affairs, who were asked about the Government's goal for the approval of candidacies for this program, and what measures are being taken to ensure that they take place in due time, aiming at the recovery of burned areas.
The deputies also emphasize that it is necessary to find a model for the recovery of the burned area which, due to its enormous extension, cannot be based on the exclusive initiative of the owners/explorers of the burned land, with the risk that a large part of the burned area will not suffer any intervention, even if there is financial support for it.
At the proposal of the Socialist Party's Parliamentary Group, the Parliamentary Committee on Agriculture and Fisheries approved this week the hearing of the ministers of the Internal Administration and of Agriculture on the fire that occurred in July in the Algarve.
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