Government managers who fail to meet deadlines for selecting viable projects and for distributing EC money to fund them, will be penalised and may even be removed, said the Deputy Minister for Regional Development.
Speaking to reporters after his speech presenting the new Community Support Framework, Portugal 2020, held in Faro, Miguel Poiares Maduro said the government had "a very great concern" about the speed that applications for community funds are dealt with and that the previous lack of checking that funds have been well spent can not continue.
Funds will be distributed to projects assessed by the snappily titled 'Interministerial Committee for Coordination of Portugal 2020.'
Maduro said that the Government has decided to impose time limits for project selection and for the distribution of project funds and that government departments which fail to deliver on time will have sanctions imposed, including the removal of the department head.
"Sometimes it is not enough just to set deadlines, it is necessary for us to impose clear consequences if deadlines are not met," argued Poiares Maduro.
The deputy minister added that another concern of the Government is that projects that receive support actually achieve the targeted results.
"A major concern with the Portugal 2020 funds is to ensure that, unlike in the past, funds not only are distributed but that they are assessed against criteria that will ensure the achievement of the desired results."
Poiares Maduro said also that project managers, should they fail, will have to send the money back, arguing that the possibility of having to return grants will ensure projects will be done properly.
"Reimbursable support guarantees the quality of the investments, because companies that know that they will have to repay the support they receive will invest more in the quality of their projects."
To Poiares Maduro, the new rules will ensure that the funds are used to support good projects that promote 'sustainable growth and greater social cohesion' and he wants to abandon the logic of the past "in which we did projects because there was funding available, not because the projects were any good in themselves."
Whether Maduro simply is young, naive and innocent, or whether his new style of project control will work, remains to be seen as it goes against the grain of Portugal's traditional role of sucking in enormous amounts of Community funds and wasting a large proportion on unnecessary or unfinished projects.
Maduro does echo what many have been saying ever since Portugal started to be sent shiploads of money in 1986 and entered a long period of unplanned and often uncontrolled project expansion with attendant corruption, theft and embezzlement.
Funding-led projects with zero tangible gain for the economy or for the population have been a Portuguese speciality, much EC money has gone to waste while many good ideas have been underfunded, not funded at all, or have had no funds to continue after completion despite achieving their targets of a non-financial nature.
If Maduro really can set project criteria and force the incompetent to repay project funds, he will be hailed as the founder of a more sensible, cost conscious and accountable system of regional development.
If the same old companies get the lion's share of development funds and continue to fill their own pockets at the Community's expense, Maduro's plans will remain plans.
Portugal 2020 is a €27.06 billion give away for local development initiatives that 'encourage entrepreneurship and job creation.'
Business plans are sought that accord with the broad criteria of ‘Local Community Development’ and that focus on partnerships that enable and encourage businesses that create jobs, especially in "disadvantaged areas in urban, rural or coastal areas that are economically fragile or that have low population density."
Among the areas from which businesses are being encouraged to apply are in 'fishing and coastal communities, fishing and coastal development, diversification and competitiveness of fisheries and the coastal based economy.'
In July 2014, the then president of the European Commission José Manuel Barroso referred to the funds as “a barrel-load of money,” as he signed the agreement in São Bento, Lisbon with Prime Minister Pedro Passos Coelho.
Barroso said that the Portugal 2020 funding agreement will silence those who say that the EC is not sympathetic to Portugal, adding "the task now is to apply these funds well. Through this agreement we have the tools to do so and I'm confident about a future with Portugal relying on European solidarity."
Barroso seemed proud that European funds had been the "main source of financing" for the Portuguese economy over the last three years not realising that this was an admission of structral weakness and the failure of previous grant schedules.
The Algarve is considered one of the better off regions of the country and qualifies for just 7% of the €27 billion funding package. Indeed, money is currently being spent on destroying the mechanics of the Algarve’s artisan fishing industry in the Ria Formosa area where perversely businesses can now apply for funds under the new Portugal 2020 framework.
Barroso said in June that he hoped the money would be well managed, all too well aware of Portugal’s mystical ability to receive large amounts of EC funding with few results other than creating an even richer business elite.
