The Algarve authorities each want to acquire the fiber optic network that connects public buildings in their territories and will present a joint proposal to the insolvency manager of the now-defunct regional development agency Globalgarve, which installed and owned that infrastructure.
According to the president of AMAL – Comunidade Intermunicipal do Algarve, “14 of the 16 mayors in the region have already signed the proposal”, and the remaining two will soon be subscribed. The proposal amounts, as a whole, "to around 270 thousand euros".
Once the proposal has been presented, and "if the creditors' meeting validates it and the judge leaves it", each Chamber holds the network installed in its municipality and manages it as it sees fit. In this business, each municipality will pay a different amount. «In the case of Tavira, it's 23,9 thousand euros», revealed Jorge Botelho, who is also mayor of this municipality.
The bankruptcy of Globalgarve, decreed by the court a few months ago, following an action brought by workers with wage arrears, left in limbo this infrastructure, which serves only public buildings. The fact that the network is now another asset in the insolvent mass of the regional development agency means that the continuity of its operation is at risk.
The outgoing directors of Globalgarve warned, at the end of last week, of this possibility, which Jorge Botelho does not rule out. "There is always a risk of a blackout and the sites [of the Chambers] being down," he said, but he added that there are alternatives that can be turned to, should that happen.
The problem is not so much whether or not there are other service providers, but rather the associated cost. Continuing to use a network created specifically to directly link the different council services, which the Councils, as Globalgarve's partners (it was a 50/50 percent public-private partnership), also helped to pay for, is much cheaper than contract the same service to any of the operators in the market. "Three or four times" cheaper, guarantee the outgoing directors of Globalgarve.
The Chambers, which were already negotiating the network before the insolvency was decreed and the Corporate Recovery Plan presented in the meantime rejected, did not give up on doing so, with the bankruptcy, as the last agency administrator Vítor Guerreiro, also president of the ACRAL, last week.
This infrastructure was put up for auction, within the scope of Globalgarve's insolvency process, for a base value of 500 thousand euros, but no interested parties emerged.
Comments