The process of transferring competences in the area of the island of Farol supervised by the Administration of the Ports of Sines and the Algarve (APS) for the Chamber of Faro is already underway and should take effect in 2023, following the appointment of a commission for the purpose, at the request of the municipality, he revealed to the Sul Informação Rogério Bacalhau, president of the municipality.
This commission will have a purpose similar to the one created to deal with the process of transferring powers from Docapesca to the municipality, in 2019, which culminated in the signing of a protocol that gave the City Council the management of the city's waterfrontand where they are planned important municipal investments.
This despite the fact that the request for the creation of both commissions was made in the same year, 2019.
«We asked the Minister of Infrastructure at the time to create a commission to transfer to the municipality the non-port areas that were assigned to the Administration of the Ports of Sines and the Algarve (APS). However, it is only now, three years later, that the commission has been appointed and that this is being worked on», he revealed.
Now, believes Rogério Bacalhau, the process should be quick.
«We are dealing with it and I think that, during this year, there will be conditions for us to take over the management of the area that belongs to the APS, in the Farol", said the president of the Chamber of Faro.
«We are also going to take over the area in Bom João, which also belongs to the APS. The Commercial Port itself will continue to have a port nature and will not be transferred to us», said the Mayor of Faro.
What «has been very difficult», accuses Rogério Bacalhau, «is this relationship with the central administration, because the municipalities have been assuming the transfer of competences, but the central administration has been very slow in responding to the decree-laws that were approved in 2019, but that, almost four years later, many of these things have not yet been assumed».
«It would be good for everyone to understand that the decree-laws are to be complied with. It seems that the former Minister of Infrastructure did not realize this because he never followed up on the constitution of the commission [for the transfer of competences from the APS to the Chamber of Faro]. We are dealing with it now and, this year, I think that matter will be settled», concluded Rogério Bacalhau.
Once the protocol with the Docapesca, which has already been signed «after having been torn around for three years», it implies the transfer of management of an urban area, «which is the entire area of Doca, including the area behind the Hotel Eva, and the navigability of the main channels of the Ria Formosa – although this already came from another transfer of competences, like the management of maritime-tourists and the wharves».
In practice, this implies that «the bandstand cafe, Naval, Eme, all those establishments that are there» become related to the Chamber.
«We will manage all that space and be responsible for its maintenance. It made no sense for Docapesca to do it, not least because that is not its mission. Now we are the ones who decide what is done and what is not done there. At the moment, we are still in a transitional situation, but this is a process that will be dealt with in the coming months. We are going to manage that space in the same way that we manage the rest of the territory», summarized the mayor of Faro.
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