Coimbra City Council approved a proposal for Urban Transport to move forward with a loan worth 4.96 million euros to renew the fleet.
This Monday, the Executive unanimously approved a proposal for a loan of 4.96 million euros and a repayment period of 15 years, for the Municipalized Urban Transport Services of Coimbra (SMTUC) to purchase new buses for its fleet.
The value identified concerns the contribution provided for in the application that SMTUC made within the scope of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) for the purchase of 30 new electric buses.
This application foresees a global investment of 13 million euros for the purchase of 14 ‘standard’ (around 12 meters long) and 16 ‘midi’ (around nine meters long) electric buses.
Of the 13 million euros, the Chamber was expected to guarantee around 4.96 million euros of the investment.
The Executive meeting also discussed an amendment to a loan of 10.5 million euros for various investments planned by the Municipality, which has not yet received approval from the Court of Auditors, a year after the process began.
The Executive also unanimously approved the change to the contract requested by the Court of Auditors, but there was room for criticism regarding the way the Coimbra Chamber has led this process.
PS councilor José Dias recalled all the “controversy” associated with the process, which had to go to the Municipal Assembly twice, in 2023, to be able to pass.
“It has been a year since the process began and the PS regrets the consequences of not listening to us at the right time”, he said.
In his response, the President of the Chamber of Coimbra, José Manuel Silva, relativized the delay in completing the process, considering it “complex”, hoping that the approved change would resolve “the loan issue once and for all”.
The Coimbra City Council also approved the donation of around 40 thousand documents by the physicist and professor at the University of Coimbra Carlos Fiolhais to the municipality, which will be used to create a library named after the essayist, in a space in Águas de Coimbra .
The Carlos Fiolhais Library will have around 20 thousand euros per year for programming, in a space whose cultural project, which will focus on the intersection between art, science and technology, will count on the collaboration of the physicist.
At the same meeting, the creation of the Coimbra Architectural Information and Research Center was also approved, through an inter-administrative contract between the City Council and the University.
