The Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) has 60 million allocated for the construction of a desalination plant in the Algarve, but this, it is now known, will cost close to 110 million euros. With around 50 million euros “missing”, AMAL – Algarve Intermunicipal Community asks the Government for solutions so that the Algarve residents do not have to pay the missing amount in future water bills, António Pina revealed to journalists today , in Faro.
The president of AMAL says that the concern of the 16 Municipal Councils of the Algarve is that the people of the Algarve end up paying the difference between the PRR money and the real cost of the work, «as has already happened with the Odelouca dam», the only dam that was paid for based on a system «in which each of us, who live here [in the Algarve], ended up paying more expensive water, because they had to pay for this work».
Initially, the perspective was that the work on the desalination plant would cost 60 million euros, but «today we know that it will be between 106 and 108 million, as two proposals in that order of values were presented» in the public tender that was launched for the desalination plant, to be built in Albufeira.
This means «more than 50 million are missing to 100% finance this crucial investment to increase the resilience of public water supply in the region».
This amount, argues António Pina, should now be guaranteed «by the State Budget or by the allocation of more funds from the PRR. Since we know that there are some projects that will not be able to be executed within the deadline imposed, we are already making this indication to the Government, so that it can distribute these unused funds to other projects that, like this one, we believe could be completed within the PRR deadline, therefore by the end of 2026.
The alternative will be for Águas do Algarve to finance the missing amount with its own funds, taking on debt, which will have an impact on the bill paid by the people of the Algarve.
«And why does the Government have to rethink this? Because it's fair to the Algarve people, we can't always be those who contribute positively to the State Budget, but then the State's investments in the Algarve are far below what our contribution to the GDP is", defended António Pina .
The president of AMAL spoke to journalists on the sidelines of a session in which Hélder Reis, Secretary of State for Regional Planning and Development, also participated.
Asked about the financing of the desalination plant, the member of the Government did not make any promises, but admitted that the situation of the desalination plant is not unique, in the universe of projects foreseen in the PRR.
This is because the plan “was created at a time of the Covid pandemic in 2020. And, therefore, the problems that Europe was experiencing were different from the problems it experienced later. When we look, for example, at the inflationary process we are experiencing and the way it has had an impact, for example, on construction, it has meant that, in some areas, the estimate that had been made within the scope of the PRR is not sufficient to achieve The work".
In this way, the Government will «assess and reevaluate» all PRR projects and only then will it decide «what will be best for each of these projects and how to finance them».
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