Avic Group suspends discounts on public transport alleging municipality debt

The group invokes a debt owed by the city council, which involves compensation amounts for the aforementioned discounts since October 2023. And it accuses the municipality of not yet having made the protocol regarding the same discounts available for the current year. He states that, despite “successive requests” to the chamber, the matter remains unresolved, which led the group’s companies to the decision to suspend the discounts.

The case was addressed this Tuesday at the fortnightly meeting of the municipal executive, which has on its agenda a proposal in which the chamber announces that “it intends to take upon itself the responsibility of directly exploiting the urban public transport service using own means”.

At the aforementioned meeting, the CDS councilor in the Viana chamber, Hugo Meira, questioned the mayor about the existence of an alleged debt in the amount of “530 thousand euros”, relating to payments not made to the company of that group in 2023 and 2024. The same topic was also raised by CDU councilors, Cláudia Marinho, and independent Eduardo Teixeira.

In response, the mayor of Viana do Castelo, Luís Nobre, spoke of “a difficult concession due to unilateral decisions” by the Avic group, and states that what is at stake is “subsidizing the activity” of transport in which “all revenue received has been transferred.”

“We are talking about compensation, which companies can treat as a debt if they want”, highlighted Luís Nobre, explaining that the municipality will have payments up to date, as “the money is transferred, when it is transferred from the State to the CIM [Comunidade Intermunicipal do Alto Minho] and from CIM to the municipality”.

“There are no skeletons in the closet here, no special treatment”, he said, guaranteeing: “We already pay twice what we receive. When we are sure that the value is guaranteed, we transfer [para as empresas]”. The mayor of Viana do Castelo accuses the Avic group of intending to “condition” the action of that municipality.

“We already realize that there is a conditioning action here, but no agent in our territory will condition the executive”, he declared, stating that “not all operators have assumed the same form” in relation to the chamber. And he indicated that the Avic group will not have signed the protocol for compensating discounts for 2024 on its own initiative. He also highlighted the chamber’s intention to take over urban transport by its own means (a point that will still be voted on at this Tuesday’s meeting).

“An application is currently open through the Environmental Fund, Notice no. 01/C21- i12/2024, with the aim of reinforcing investment in the decarbonization of public transport by increasing (…) the number of new zero-emission buses used for public passenger transport, as well as including the installation of bus stations electricity charging (…”, for which the Municipality of Viana do Castelo intends to apply”, informs the proposal to be submitted to the executive.

The document also states that the “municipality of Viana do Castelo, as a Transport Authority, intends to assume responsibility for directly operating the urban public transport service using its own means, as per the Legal Regime of the Public Passenger Transport Service, approved by Law no. 52/2015 of June 9, in its article 169 and following, after the end of the current transport concession in force (2025)”.

In a statement released on Monday, the Avic group writes that “on April 19th, (its) companies once again alerted the municipality to these situations (delay in compensation payments and failure to sign the protocol for 2024 ), informing that, if these were not resolved, there would be no other alternative but to suspend the aforementioned discounts”.

And he adds that “as the situation continued, with no action taken to resolve it by the municipality, the discounts had to be suspended”, and that the situation “will unfortunately affect around 1000 passengers daily in the municipality of Viana do Castelo, which will see their transport costs increase significantly”.

The group’s companies, Transcunha – Transportes Rodoviários de Viana, Lda., Auto Viação do Minho, Lda. and António dos Prazeres da Silva & Filho, Lda., are at stake.