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Yesterday, the Candidate for PSD, Álvaro Almeida, was at the palace to see the projects

The City Hall of Porto has already adjudicated the transformation work of Pavilhão Rosa Mota into a congress and event centre and the consortium PEV/Lucios was given two years to complete these works. The long and polemic public tender process has delayed the works, which led PSD to mention the “incapacity in executing” large-scale projects by the administration of Rui Moreira, as claimed by Álvaro Almeida.

The contract entered into between the City Hall of Porto and the consortium that won the tender after many difficulties established no date for the beginning of works. The consortium that is formed by the producer PEV Entertainment and the constructor Lucios must decide on the schedule and the beginning of works, depending on the deadline for their conclusion, which is defined by the tender document, i.e. 730 after contract signing.

The contract was already initialled by the parties, after the Court of Accounts has declared that the municipality was exempt from issuing a prior approval, because the business would not bear costs to the City Hall of Porto. The autarchy is receiving 20 thousand euros per month for 20 years, and the concession holder is obliged to keep and exploit the pavilion, holding at least four international events per year.

If Álvaro Almeida’s wish to gain the October elections for PSD comes true, this project will be kept the same, despite his disagreement with what is being executed at Pavilhão Rosa Mota. The candidate has even admitted that if he were the mayor, he would have executed the previous project, which was more ambitious capacity-wise and that implied the construction of a new building in the garden, which was challenged at the time. But now the candidate says he has no time to spare.

“There is no such thing as the perfect project”, he argued. He believes the solution found in the meantime does not meet the city’s needs, because it cannot hold large-scale congresses or events that cannot be held at the pavilion or at the Congress Centre of Alfândega. If there were an equipment like this, Porto would for instance be able to host Festival da Canção, he added.

“Note that when he was a candidate, in 2013, Rui Moreira promised the construction of a congress centre at Palácio de Cristal. Now, four months from the end of his terms of office, there is nothing to see. Nothing has changed”, he stated. The candidate of authenticity criticised this during a pre-campaign initiative at the Palace during which he blamed the administration of Rui Moreira for the “decay and abandonment” of this equipment.

“This is an example of a problem that this mayor promised to solve and was not able to execute”, noted Álvaro Almeida. He believes the delay in starting this and other projects is a sign of “incompetence”. When he was a candidate he promised work, and not planning, stated Álvaro Almeida, including other projects on his critique.

Other than the palace rehabilitation, Álvaro Almeida treated Mercado do Bolhão and the slaughterhouse in the same way. The latter ceased to be a logistic centre (campaign promise in 2013) but is not yet the cultural centre presented in 2016, in Campanhã, the civil parish of the intermodal transport terminal that is still a project. He also added Linha Ocidental do Metro do Porto – a work that is not depending on the municipality, but that the municipality has dropped.

Anyway, Álvaro Almeida promises he will continue the ongoing projects to avoid any more delays, even if he does not fully agree with them. In the case of Pavilhão Rosa Mota, the costs to revert the project would be too much for the city.

In Publico