The fiber optic network created under the Algarve Digital project, by the recently defunct regional development agency Globalgarve, and which directly connects public buildings across the region, is unowned and at risk of getting lost.
Now, this network is just one more asset of the insolvent mass of this body, which resulted from a public-private partnership that encompassed several entities in the Algarve.
The outgoing administration of Globalgarve gave a press conference this Friday, where he warned of this situation and made an appeal to the local authorities to "not drop an added value for the region".
ACRAL president Vitor Guerreiro, his CEAL counterpart Carlos Luís and João Calçada Correia, from the company Calçada Correia, have been in charge of Globalgarve's destinations since the summer of 2013, when the agency was already involved in an insolvency process, requested by former workers, for wage arrears.
And it was the three people who showed up this Friday, a few months after the court declared Globalgarve insolvent, a decision that, they don't hide, surprised them. This is because, since they took over as administrators of the company - "as volunteers, because no one wanted to do it" - they have done an exhaustive job of reducing costs, resizing the workforce and renegotiating contracts with suppliers, which allowed "lower costs operating by 40 percent,” according to Vítor Guerreiro.
One of the company's main assets, valued at half a million euros in the survey report of Globalgarve's assets made by the insolvency manager, are «the municipal islands connecting public buildings on a broadband network», the “jewel in the crown” of the Algarve Digital project, in which more than 9 million euros were invested over the years.
Vítor Guerreiro: “If [the Algarve Councils] had paid on time, there would have been no arrears of wages”
With the bankruptcy of Globalgarve, whose capital was divided 50/50 percent between private and public entities, this asset is technically unowned. There has even been an auction to sell it, for 500 thousand euros, but no interested parties have emerged.
According to Vítor Guerreiro, before the court declared Globalgarve's insolvency, a joint effort was being made between the outgoing administration and AMAL -Comunidade Intermunicipal do Algarve, to buy this asset, but the end of the company removed the three administrators from the process . This does not prevent them from advising the municipalities to continue the process, in their interest.
For now, they say, the service continues to be guaranteed by the company that already managed the network, Algardata, and there will be an agreement that guarantees that "as long as the chambers continue to pay, there is no cut." Despite warning that this network "may be concerned with the liquidation of assets under Globalgarve's insolvency", the administrators said that "there are alternatives", offered by private parties, to this network, but that "will cost much more", in the order of 3 and 4 times more than what the local authorities paid until now.
“I think it is incomprehensible to lose this asset, which belongs to the entire region and cost us all money,” said Vítor Guerreiro. And, despite assuring that this was not what motivated the press conference, it left a challenge for the city councils in the region. “I appeal to public decision makers not to let this added value fall,” said Vítor Guerreiro.
Local authorities could have avoided insolvency if… they paid on time
The main beneficiaries of the Algarve Digital project were the Algarve authorities, which in their scope benefit from a service that would otherwise cost them much more. The Chambers became partners of the company, until the moment that the law prevented them. There were even three mayors, chaired by the then director of AMAL Macário Correia, who managed the company in 2012.
But, guarantees Vítor Guerreiro, it was the constant delays in the payment of debts to the Regional Development Agency that were at the base of the snowball that led to the company's insolvency. When asked whether he considered that the local authorities had influenced Globalgarve's insolvency, Vítor Guerreiro was emphatic: «yes». And he repeated, with more emphasis: "yes!" "If they paid in time, there would have been no wage arrears," he stated.
According to the company's outgoing directors, when they took office in June 2013, they found a "consolidated global debt of 918,3 thousand euros". But there were also credits to exist «in the amount of 264 thousand euros», in large part for services rendered to municipal councils.
The administration did the math, took measures and, he guarantees, was going to be able to revitalize the company. That was precisely what he put in the Corporate Recovery Plan that he presented and ended up being approved by most creditors. "But the judge decided to declare insolvency, considering that the workers who filed the lawsuit were going to be harmed," explained Vítor Guerreiro. A decision that is strange, since it harms the interests of the others involved, namely “the public interest”.
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