The 2020 State Budget proposal foresees an amount of 80 million euros to pay for the cancellation of the Algarve Litoral road sub-concession.
According to the report on the proposal for the State Budget for 2020, which the Government delivered yesterday to the Assembly of the Republic, among the temporary measures on the expenditure side, there is the payment, by the company Infraestruturas de Portugal, to the sub-concessionaire, of a total amount 80 million euros “for the cancellation of the Algarve Litoral road sub-concession”.
According to the report, «temporary measures on the expenditure side include the transfer of capital to Novo Banco, the conversion of deferred tax assets into tax credits, the transition from the Mutual Agricultural Credit Guarantee Fund to the Deposit Guarantee Fund, the compensation under a court decision in charge of the Lisbon City Council, as well as compensation to Infraestruturas de Portugal for the cancellation of the Algarve Litoral road sub-concession». The total value of all these expenses “amounts to 1050 million euros”.
The renegotiation of this Public-Private Partnership had been rejected in June 2018, in a first decision of the Court of Auditors, which Infraestruturas de Portugal appealed.
The TC confirmed the original sentence a year later, last June, which took the own Minister of Infrastructure Pedro Nuno Santos to admit, in July, the government's rescue of the EN125 concession.
With the payment of this compensation of 80 million euros, this is what, in practice, will happen. Thus, the doors will be open to advance the long-announced redevelopment of the EN125 between Olhão and Vila Real de Santo António.
Note: Article corrected at 17:00, placing the correct amount of compensation to be paid to the sub-concessionaire, which is only 80 million euros.
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