Secretary of State for Urban Mobility Jorge Delgado admits that the Lisbon metro expansion could cost more than 500 million euros, but guarantees that the additional costs “will be covered”.
“In this set of 1,700 million euros, we are talking about a final amount that will approach 500,600 million euros of additional costs,” said Jorge Delgado in an interview with Antena 1 and Jornal de Negócios.
The slippage, the official emphasizes, is due to two factors that are “very well defined”: “the costs associated with starting work before work even starts, when mitigation measures have to be introduced, and the cost of repricing.” which are the result of this exceptional inflation.”
Asked if that cost could increase further, the Secretary of State acknowledges that it can, noting that, as a general rule, the final cost of any community service is usually higher than originally estimated.
“Maybe, of course it can increase, like all public works that have a price revision, the final cost is always slightly higher,” he admits.
At the end of February, speaking to reporters during a visit to work on the tunnel that will link the future Estrela and Santos Metropolitano de Lisboa stations, Minister for the Environment and Climate Action Duarte Cordeiro said that the expansion of the 18-kilometer network between the extension of the Yellow Line, the extension of the red line and the new purple line, which will connect Loures and Odivelas, will represent an investment of more than one billion euros.
In an interview with Antena 1 and Jornal de Negócios, the Secretary of State for Urban Mobility assured that the additional costs “will be covered”, namely through the Recovery and Resilience Plan and its reprogramming, or alternatively through the state budget or the Environment Fund.
Jorge Delgado also adds that the state’s contribution to buying electric vehicles could run out, defending the evolution towards a “more universal” incentive in terms of charging costs so that “it can be even lower.”
“We have kept the momentum going for the past two years and the number of electric vehicle sales has skyrocketed. The purchase option is not entirely related to the incentive,” he says, however, acknowledging that the surcharge played “a key role in starting the process” as it helped in the decision.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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