A lack of clear information has been blamed by Spanish motorists for the cumulative debt they now owe in unpaid tolls incurred while travelling on the Algarve’s Via do Infante motorway and beyond.
The Users Commission of the Via do Infante reports that Spanish motorists "continue to experience many difficulties in understanding how the system works,” and it is not just the Spaniards.
The Commission’s spokesman Pedro Tavares said that the A22 links the Algarve to the Spanish region of Andalucia and is the main route between Portugal and Spain in the south but the government allowed tolls to be charged as from December 2011 despite the road's construction being paid for mostly by EU funds to 'develop the Algarve region.'
After a meeting in Huelva, Spain this week with the Spanish law firm that is handling the 300,000 debt notifications for Spanish motorists, CUVI said that Spaniards and other are using their payment cards for to A22 travel but then are scooting off to Lisbon through Via Verde green channels thinking that they will be billed later, or that they already have paid for travel for any stretch of Portugal’s motorway system.
This highlights the corporate insanity of having several Algarve toll payment systems run by Brisa and Ascendi that differ from the rest of the country, and several payment systems for Portuguese and foreign registered vehicles some of which are so ludicrous that when explained the response is uncontrolled laughter and temporary incontinence.
The Spanish debt collecting firm say that so far its office has sent out notifications to Spain’s bewildered travellers to tell them they owe Portugal’s toll company money, €11 million from a total uncollected debt of €80 million. Only later, if the recipients still have not paid, will legal notifications be sent out and collection processes started."
It seems not to have crossed the minds of Portugal’s government officers or of the toll collection company suits that if 300,000 travellers form one country owe such a huge debt, maybe there is something wrong with the system. Most businesses owed €80 million for their services would fold but the controller of the Algarve's A22 tolling system seesm content that the systems put in place are so laughably inefficient, confusing and often simply ignored.
Tavares said that there also are cases of transport companies evading tolls, "particularly in Galicia, which have taken advantage of the inherent weaknesses in the system and already owe half a million euros relating to tolls which have never been paid.”
CUVI has spend nearly three years warning of the difficulties that the A22 tolls represent to essential trade between Portugal and Spain, to the transport companies and to the free movement of people and goods between the two sides of the southern border where there is no alternative route.
Portugal’s government says that the EN125 is the alternative, but clearly have failed to do basic homework.
The original €200 million promised by government in 2011 for upgrading the EN125 evaporated shortly after it was announced and despite assurances, the EN125 still is not being fixed.
Lisbon sees no shame in this behaviour as lying and evasion is part of the job of those in the various ministries that continue to humour the Algarve region while doing as little as possible to sort out its very real problems.
CUVI agrees with the majority of motorists that the EN125 is crumbling away and that the volume of traffic that the road now is taking from the A22 has again made it "the road of death."
Pedro Tavares announced a further meeting on 27 November in Ayamonte with politicians and trade and industry associations from both sides of the border to discuss the problems caused by tolls on the A22.
As for the Spanish debtors, it is unlikely that many will feel like paying up and hopefully Spain's courts will start to fill up with those contesting the charges.
