A National Entity for the Fuel Market (ENMC) he contested today, in a statement, the accusations of lack of transparency that were addressed to him by the Algarve municipalities, in the under a joint position of AMAL, the Intermunicipal Community of the Algarve.
ENMC, which claims to have received the position of the municipalities "with surprise", guarantees that, despite the concession process for exploration and prospecting of hydrocarbons in the Algarve being "recent", it has placed "all signed contracts and respective information on its website , on the day following the signing of the said contracts'.
With this availability on the website, ENMC says that, as "a supervisory entity and immediately responsible for the defense of the national and public interest, it sought from the first moment to guarantee all the conditions of transparency and institutional information".
At your most recent meeting, the presidents of all Algarve municipalities approved, unanimously, a public position where they considered that «the contract that was signed between the Portuguese State and a company in the sector, for the concession of prospecting, research, development and oil production rights in the areas designated by Aljezur and Tavira, is a a situation that exceeds the permissible limits in all respects with regard to the right of access to information, clarification, public discussion and, above all, the respect that local authorities deserve».
In its statement today, the Entity guarantees, however, that «on October 28th (about a month and a half before this position was taken by the municipalities), ENMC sent the president of AMAL an invitation to carry out a working meeting with all the Algarve's municipalities, so that all channels of information and clarification on what is really at stake in this concession were developed».
For the Entity, this meeting with the municipalities “was requested in a timely manner and by the ENMC, long before any public position of the aforementioned municipalities”.
In his view, this would demonstrate “total respect for the local representatives of the populations, who really deserve all the clarifications and that there is no doubt that results from misinformation or unjustified alarmism”.
Contacted by Sul Informação, Jorge Botelho, AMAL president, underlined that «the invitation from ENMC that reached us was only made after the concession contracts had been signed. Where is the transparency that they preach, if they didn't want to know our opinion, as mayors, beforehand?”
As for the availability of contracts on the ENMC website, which Jorge Botelho also points out was only made «after these contracts were signed», without the Municipalities involved having been «found or found» in advance. Furthermore, he considers, “how could we have guessed that these contracts were published on the website? Only if we were looking at all the sites, every day…»
Therefore, underlines the AMAL president, "it doesn't do much good for ENMC to come now to talk about transparency."
At the meeting scheduled for December 18, at AMAL headquarters, in Faro, the Algarve's mayors hope to “hear all the clarifications that should have been given to us before”.
ENMC, for its part, states that "everything will continue to be done in defense of the public interest, in strict compliance with the law, with full and complete information to all interested parties, and in the certainty that nothing is done without these assumptions. are guaranteed'.
Emphasizing its alleged transparency, the Entity concludes by saying that, «with the same objective and the same policy of proactivity and proximity to the local government, ENMC already met on December 2, in Pombal, with the 12 municipalities covered by the Pombal and Batalha concession, for information and coordination, a meeting requested at the same time as AMAL».
In the unanimous position announced this week, local authorities in the region said they did not want to see "the Algarve associated with oil, much less with a process that was anything but transparent", as he told the Sul Informação AMAL president Jorge Botelho.
Therefore, the Intermunicipal Community of the Algarve repudiated the contracts signed between the State and a company, for fossil fuel extraction in two onshore concessions and said that it intends to use “all legal forms” at its disposal to reverse the situation.
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