Portimão already has a Municipal Center for Civil Protection and Relief Operations which is «one of the best municipal centers nationwide», said the mayor of the Chamber, Isilda Gomes, at the inauguration of the equipment by the minister of Internal Administration, Anabela Rodrigues.
The Municipal Center is installed on the 2nd floor of the Barracks of Portimonenses Firefighters and, as he explained to the Sul Informação Commander Richard Marques, «concentrates here all the responsibilities and technical areas of Civil Protection in Portimão».
Mayor Isilda Gomes revealed that the installation of the Center cost, "in direct purchases", 50 thousand euros, but the total investment will have reached "60 thousand euros, with the furniture and other equipment that we brought from the Chamber". An investment that, underlined before the minister Anabela Rodrigues, “is mainly due to the cooperation of our citizens, because they paid the Municipal Civil Protection Tax”.
Commander Richard Marques, in his statements to our newspaper and explaining the advantages of creating the Municipal Center, added that «before there was an office that dealt more with the administrative planning aspect and that is now integrated into what is the responsibility of the command of operations , which is the responsibility of the firefighters'.
«By creating an integrated centre, right from the start, we have here an economy, a profitability and enhancement of the existing resources in Portimão», he explained. Or, as Álvaro Bila, president of the Humanitarian Association of Firefighters, said, with this Center “we do more with less”.
Richard Marques underlined the importance of "permanent monitoring, 24 hours a day, of situations that could cause a serious accident or catastrophe" and announced something new: that a "freephone number for the population" will soon be created, which will guarantee 24-hour assistance, not only for matters that have to do effectively with relief, but also with the assistance that the population needs. This center will be able to forward this request to the competent services».
Portimão, explained Chamber President Isilda Gomes to the Minister of Internal Administration, is not just any municipality. In 2013, it received more than 1,8 million overnight stays from tourists, that is, 400 more than «all of Alentejo» in the same period, or 700 more than the Autonomous Region of the Azores.
And, underlined the mayor, "when we choose a tourist destination, we take into account several factors and one of them is the safety of people and goods."
Richard Marques revealed that firefighters in Portimão attend to an average of 5000 occurrences of «emergency, protection and help» per year, a number that «is not evenly divided during a whole year», since, as in tourism, «there is one peak in July and August, in which the device, which is the same as we have throughout the year, has a more accentuated effort». However, he explained, "this Center will also allow to mitigate and anticipate any measures that may contribute to this peak to be mitigated."
But the minister's visit to Portimão also served for the mayor Isilda Gomes, who was once Civil Governor and therefore had responsibilities in the matter, to draw attention to the need to effectively regulate the financing of fire brigades.
“I don't accept that men and women who selflessly are here 24 hours a day to defend others have to walk with their hands outstretched or have to go months and months without receiving pay. This is absolutely not acceptable. There has to be an understanding between the central government, local authorities and humanitarian associations in order to find a support mechanism that frees the associations from the pressure that they constantly have to not know if they reach the end of the month and have the money to pay their salaries».
Isilda Gomes added that, now that the Basic Civil Protection Law is under discussion, "it is still time to make some changes."
In response, minister Anabela Rodrigues guaranteed that the law on financing firefighters will allow "improving the planning and programming" of the investments necessary for the continuous operational capacity of corporations.
"More than a step with very important consequences in operational practice, it is, in our opinion, a measure of complete justice," added the governor.
Anabela Rodrigues admitted that “the elaboration of a financing law” was necessary to allow the stability of humanitarian associations that own the fire brigades, since these are an essential pillar in the civil protection system.
"The law will allow the financing to proceed in a stable and predictable way, which is crucial for better planning, namely for the programming of investments necessary for the continuous improvement of the operational capacity", said the responsible for the Ministry of Internal Administration.
The new law, which will soon be discussed in the Assembly of the Republic, foresees an increase of about 12% in the budget allocated by the central administration to humanitarian associations.
After the inauguration of the new Center facilities, Minister Anabela Rodrigues had the opportunity to observe all the means existing in Portimão for relief operations, involving various entities, public and private.
The Municipal Center for Civil Protection and Relief Operations of Portimão has been operational in the last six months, intending to be «a model building within the scope of municipal competences in the area of Civil Protection».
The Center will integrate in a single space the local Civil Protection agents, namely the essential elements for the materialization of the operational response in the scope of protection and assistance, it will house the Municipal Civil Protection Commission in its institutional coordination powers, either in the political or in the in operational coordination, being equally prepared to serve the functions of a differentiated organization in a situation of serious accident or catastrophe, through the activation of the Municipal Civil Protection Emergency Plan.
In the morning, Minister Anabela Rodrigues visited Loulé, where inaugurated the support building for the Heliport Base in Permanent Service and signed the protocol that guarantees 1,2 million euros to the Special Arrangement for Fighting Forest Fires in the Algarve for 2015.
Comments