Portimão councillors have unanimously approved a motion demanding the abolition of tolls on the Via do Infante motorway.
The proposal was put forward by councillor João Vasconcellos of the Left Bloc, a well know figure and major force behind the Committee of Users of the Via do Infante protest movement.
Besides requiring the government to "scrap this ruinous Public Private Partnership and proceed to the immediate suspension of tolls on the Via do Infante," the council, now led by socialist Isilda Gomes, called on "AMAL, mayors, business associations, trade unions, civic and other forces in the Algarve to constitute and support a broad platform in the Algarve for the immediate suspension of tolls."
The motion argues that the introduction of tolls on the Via do Infante "has been a serious historical mistake which is contributing mightily to the burden on taxpayers and increasing an economic and social disaster in the Algarve, and helping to strangle its development."
The document will now be sent "to the Prime Minister, the Minister of the Economy, the President of the Republic, the President of AMAL and the Parliamentary Group of the Assembly of the Republic," and of course the media.
AMAL, the grouping of Algarve mayors supported the tolls when under the chairmanship of Macario Correia shortly after their introduction. Correia's U-turn on the subject still is regarded as one of the most spectacular in local politics.
Correia has now gone and if the Algarve mayors get their acts together and support the abolition of the financially ruinous system there is a far better chance of opening a sensible debate. Now that the passage of time has provided facts and figures as to the tolls' affect on the local economy the situation can at last be reviewed.
Some openness is needed from the government to explain to the general taxpayer why the state has ended up paying to support the Via o Infante's Spanish owned concession holder whose income has fallen below a hastily decided baseline.
