Ending tolls on Via do Infante, in the Algarve, is one of the three dozen proposals to amend the State Budget for 2016 presented by the Left Block (BE), during the debate on the specialty, in the Assembly of the Republic.
The proposed exemption from tolls on Via do Infante is, according to BE, “a yearning for elementary justice and legality, claimed for a long time by the Commission of Users of Via do Infante, populations, mayors, businessmen and other entities of the Algarve society ».
The implementation of tolls by the former PSD/CDS-PP government, on December 8, 2011, proved “catastrophic for the region, with the loss of competitiveness in relation to neighboring Andalusia and the consequent damage to the regional economy, business failures and worsening unemployment”.
«The Algarve has become, due to a deadly EN 125, into a “permanent state of war”, with tens of thousands of accidents (in 2015 there were almost 10 000 accidents), hundreds of serious injuries and around 130 fatalities ( much of it took place in this “urban street” which does not represent any alternative to Via do Infante)”, stress the blocistas.
In addition, in recent times, the EN 125 “has become a “infernal road”, whose time-consuming requalification works on large extensions of the road result in long lines of vehicles that increase traffic accidents. With the approach of the Easter and Summer periods, in which the number of motorists, many tourists, increases exponentially, the Algarve will see tragedy increase in this route».
Against this background, the deputies and deputies of the Left Bloc, namely the Algarve parliamentarian João Vasconcelos, presented, at the end of 2015, Bill No. 73/XIII/1st that “Determines the exemption of Tolls on the A22 (Via do Infante)”, an initiative that may be debated and voted on during this legislative session and if the proposal presented under the 2016 State Budget is not accepted by the majority.
The Bloc considers that “the Portuguese State has the duty to denounce the big contracts with the concessionaire, maintained by the previous government. This is a Public Private Partnership (PPP) that contributes to burdening the State and taxpayers with many millions of euros, even considering an annual revenue of 25 million euros, according to information provided by the Infrastructures of Portugal. The costs and damages caused to the economy and society in the region, the dead, the wounded, the expenses with the NHS are far greater than the income generated».
On the other hand, adds BE, "the exemption from tolls on Via do Infante also restores legality, given that two thirds were built using funding from the European Union, outside the SCUT model."
A statement from BE's Algarve District Coordinator Secretariat recalls that the current prime minister, leader of a government supported by the Bloc, “during the campaign for legislative elections, acknowledged that EN 125 “was a massacre” and admitted to ending with tolls on Via do Infante».
For this reason, defend the Algarvian blocists, "the time has come for promises to be fulfilled and to end tolls in the Algarve, a condition that depends solely on the Government of the Socialist Party".
In voting for the State Budget in the specialty, «deputies from all political forces, and including those elected by the Algarve, will once again have the opportunity to demonstrate which side they are on: for or against the Algarve».
The Left Block recalls that “it fulfills what it promises with the presentation, in the specialty of OE 2016, of the proposal for the exemption of tolls on Via do Infante. In the coming days, and before the vote of the OE in the specialty, João Vasconcelos, deputy of the Left Bloc elected by the Algarve, will address the Prime Minister, through an open letter, in which he will make an appeal towards Via Infante will become a toll-free road».
In the discussion in the specialty of the OE, the Parliamentary Group of the Left Bloc also presented other proposals.
They are proposals in the area of work (fighting precariousness, support for self-employed workers), social policy (social security childminders, with extension of the transitional childminders regime, Teaching Career statute, social energy tariff, family allowance, solidarity supplement for the elderly, settlement of student debts), disability (disability deduction, increase in family allowance for disabled children, increase in lifetime monthly allowance, early retirement age), justice (cost exemptions for actions on domestic violence and related to work accidents and occupational diseases), culture (guarantee of increased appropriations for culture), and, in the field of municipalities, housing and transport (safeguard clause for the elderly, which protects elderly citizens in updates in headquarters of IMI, deduction for dependents of IMI, end of tax exemption to Misericórdias, Municipal Social Fund, for expenses related to attributions and competences tions transferred from the central administration to the municipalities, recognizing the attribution of these powers to the municipalities' own government bodies, end of IMT exemptions for all real estate funds, concessions to railways, ISV exemption for Fire Departments).
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