Costs from storms to exceed €4.7Bn

Portugal’s Minister of the Economy has revealed that the costs of the storms will exceed €4.7Bn .

In an interview with Radio Observador, Manuel Castro Almeida repeated that the raft of financial support to rebuild houses that were destroyed in the storms in January is being delayed because local municipal councils have been unable to meet the demand for damage surveyors to visit all of the properties involved.

However, at the companies level, there are 3,725 companies that now have emergency support funds in their accounts.

Leiria Town Council posted €243 million in losses from storm Kristin alone.

Manuel Castro Almeida blamed local councils saying that the process of supporting the reconstruction of houses affected by bad weather was “not going well” which was down to the responsibility of the local authorities.

The reaction from mayors, who make up the Inter-Municipal Community (CIM) of Leiria, was to slam the minister, accusing him of “a profound lack of knowledge of the work done by local authorities, calling his comments “profoundly unfair” and “disloyal”.

“The councils have a lot of work and their priority should be to repair roads and schools, and they also have the additional work of inspecting (damaged) houses”, said Castro Almeida.

Government grants for rebuilding damaged houses was “delayed” because “there are difficulties in carrying out these assessments”.

A protocol has been signed with the Order of Architects, the Order of Engineers and the Order of Technical Engineers under which 700 surveyors are hired to help the municipal councils to assess the damage to houses.

Local authorities have to request the support of these technicians, the costs are borne by the State and “there are already dozens of technicians on the ground”, said Castro Almeida.

Source: Radio Observador, Credits.