Officially taking office on Friday, October 8th, Lieutenant Colonel Carlos Almeida, the new Commander of the GNR Territorial Command of Faro, has described his new position as 'a challenge'.
He says he wants to continue "the excellent work developed by previous commander, Pedro Oliveira, because in recent years, the Algarve has registered a decrease in crime. It is on this path that we want to continue".
Exiting commander Colonel Pedro Oliveira, who was in office for two years and five months, said in his farewell speech that the Territorial Command of Faro is "the best unit in the Guard". In addition to praising the unity of the command, Oliveira also recalled some tasks they faced during a period deeply marked by the pandemic, such as security operations for the holding of the Formula 1 Portuguese Grand Prix, or the MotoGP.
He was praised by both his successor Carlos Almeida and Lieutenant General Santos Correia, Operational Commander of the GNR, for "his human dimension", the "ability to establish bridges and dialogues” and the way “in which he led the assistance to the populations” in the forest fires that affected the Algarve.
After "two years with complex times, in which the Guard made an effort to deal with the pandemic, at this moment, with the third phase of deconfinement, an effort to readaptation to normality is necessary", praised Almeida, the new Territorial Commander.
Among the priorities for his mandate, Carlos Almeida says his priorities are to improve proximity to the population, "through the reinforcement of community patrolling", Nature and the Environment, which deserve "special attention", and the "requalification of the police stations, whether through improvement of infrastructures, or through the optimisation of processes and procedures, which will improve the services provided to citizens".
At the end of the ceremony, the new Territorial Commander of Faro, admitted to journalists that his coming to the Algarve is a "challenge", taking into account "the characteristics that the region has".
“There is a landscape, social and demographic heterogeneity. I'm aware of the difficulties, but I don't see another place where I would like to be more", he concluded.
