The Council of Ministers this Thursday, July 30th, approved the amendment to the contract, and respective draft, of the concession relating to the «conception, project, construction, financing, operation and maintenance of the motorway, and associated road sets, designated as Algarve”, that is, referring to the Via do Infante/A22.
The statement of the Council of Ministers underlines that this approval allows the State "a saving of approximately 85 million euros".
With this last approval, the process of renegotiation of the PPP for highways initiated by the current Government, which is intended to "sustainably reduce the corresponding public charges, contributing to the financial viability of the sector and the future sustainability of public accounts" is concluded.
In total, the negotiation process of the road PPP allows, according to the Government, to ensure a "reduction in future gross charges estimated at 7,2 billion euros over the remaining term of the respective contracts, thus alleviating the effort of Portuguese taxpayers".
In your recent interview with Sul Informação, the Prime Minister had announced that, at the end of this process of renegotiation of the PPP for highways, and after convincing the financing entities of the usefulness of the changes, the objective would be to “change the tariffs” of ex-Scut, such as Via do Infante.
"It is my conviction that we will succeed, with the institutions with whom these agreements have to be formalized - essentially, the European Investment Bank and banking entities in Portugal, since, with the sub-concessionaires and concessionaires, we have already negotiated - , close the issue of contracts and then we can change the rates. I think we will be able to do this by positively discriminating those [ex-Scut] that are primarily aimed at less developed regions», said Pedro Passos Coelho.
Also according to the statement from the Council of Ministers, the «reduction of the reference internal rate of shareholder return provided for in the base case» is one of the areas contemplated in the amendment now approved in the contract referring to the A22.
Another aspect is the “optimization of the applicable operating levels, taking into account, namely, the change in the regulatory framework of the road sector and the current and expected traffic volume until the end of the contract”.
The responsibility of the State was also redefined "for the financing and payment of major pavement repairs, which are no longer financed in advance and based on forecasts of occurrence that may not be verified, to be paid only if, and when, effectively necessary and carried out the intervention”, stresses the communiqué.
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