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The Minister of Infrastructure, Pedro Nuno Santos, said on Tuesday that “the public procurement process is a terror” that “makes the work of the State and companies that make public investment hell”.
“The public contracting process is a terror. It is done so that the State cannot do what it has to do on time”, defended the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing, Pedro Nuno Santos, during the online debate “Time for engineering “. , a conference to commemorate Engineer’s Day.
The government official with the infrastructure portfolio even considered that the public procurement process “makes the work of the State and companies that want to invest in public works a hell”, as it is a “bureaucratic”, “difficult” process, “” complex “and” waste of time. “
“Every time we want to make a change, we are immediately accused of wanting to reduce transparency,” lamented the minister, highlighting that the changes that the Government managed to make are details that do not resolve “the drama” that, he said, faces daily at work.
This position was also shared by the president of the Order of Engineers, who added “dread” to the adjectives listed by the minister to classify the public procurement process.
Carlos Mineiro Aires recalled that the public procurement law has already been reviewed 12 times, but the problems persist.
The Order of Engineers then proposed that the calls for tenders be opened in two phases: technical proposals on the one hand and, after selecting some proposals, that financial proposals be opened.
The volume of public works contracts was, until October, 43% below the level of promoted tenders, which grew 18% year-on-year and reached the highest value since 2010, the Association of Civil Construction and Public Works Industries ( AICCOPN).
According to the public works barometer, “until the end of October public works tenders were promoted for an overall amount of 4,160 million euros, a figure that translates into a growth of 18% in year-on-year terms, exceeding the total calculated for 2019 , which is the highest value registered since the beginning of this series, in 2010 ”.
The total of public works subject to contract and registered in the Base Portal until the end of October was 2,363 million euros, 3% more (current year-on-year variation, vha) than that verified in 2019.
The engineers also defended that in each contest a quota should be imposed for young engineers, so that they have the opportunity to gain experience.
Regarding the National Investment Plan 2030 (PNI 2030), Pedro Nuno Santos highlighted the investment in the railroad, in housing and also some road investment, to “bring industrial areas closer to the major road axes” and make “cross-border connections that still missing”.
The government official also mentioned that there is an authorization in the State Budgets to advance up to one billion euros intended to advance with priority projects, while European funds are not available, since there are negotiations that are still ongoing at the European level.
“I would say that the country is going to desperately need our engineers,” considered the Minister of Infrastructure, referring to the volume of planned investments and the engineering capacity necessary for their implementation.
Regarding the commitment to hydrogen, which has been highlighted by the Ministry of the Environment, Pedro Nuno Santos defended that Portugal can “be on the technological frontier” with respect to this resource.
“We can be ‘followers’ for the rest of our history, but we must also have the ambition, from time to time, to be leaders and we can be leaders in hydrogen,” he argued.
The Minister of Environment and Climate Action, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, the president of the Order of Engineers, Carlos Mineiro Aires, the president of the Confederation of Portuguese Industry, António Saraiva, and the president of the Association of Construction Industry Civil and Public Works (AICCOPN), Manuel Reis Campos.
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