Task force to coordinate reconstruction is operational

The Task Force for the recovery of the areas hit by storm Kristin met for the first time at the headquarters of the Leiria Region Intermunicipal Community on the second, the date it became functional, taking on the coordination of the Government’s response to the populations, companies, and municipalities struck. 

The meeting, also attended by the Ministers of Economy and Territorial Cohesion Manuel Castro Almeida, and Infrastructure and Housing Miguel Pinto Luz, set as priorities the emergency intervention, the continuous monitoring on the ground, and the immediate start of the urgent works funded by the State in a centralised and politically led response. The platform to submit assistance requests for rebuilding damaged homes is already available online.

The Task Force was set up following decision by the Council of Ministers at the extraordinary meeting held on 1 February, which approved a packet of measures to respond to the storm’s effects. At the same meeting, the leadership of the task force was assigned to Paulo Fernandes, former Mayor of Fundão.

The task force will operate in Leiria. Its mission is to combine the different public administration levels, ensuring coherence in Government action and conduct a thorough survey of the damages. This survey is a prerequisite for, among others, draft a request to the European Union Solidarity Fund, for which the Government has 12 weeks, without prejudice to the response already under way.

The Minister of Economy and Territorial Cohesion claimed that "the request we will make is to the Solidarity Fund to financially support the recovery because at the moment, Portugal has on hands (…) more than two billion euros in losses".

The articulation between the Government, local powers and the private sector is detrimental to accelerate the assessment of damages, the technical surveys and the kickstart of the priority interventions. The operational data confirm the scale of the damages with a significant impact on the electricity infrastructure, which still difficult daily life returning to normal in several councils, particularly in the Leiria district. 

The Government acknowledges the difficulties and great pressure on services and the populations, identifying as structural challenges the reconstruction of the basic networks, supply of materials, and preventing price speculation.

Several Secretaries of State also attended the meeting, as well as corporate and construction association representatives, the chair of the Centre Regional Coordination and Development Commission, people charged with intermunicipal communities, representatives from the Competitiveness and Innovation Agency (IAPMEI), and Mayors of the Lisbon and Porto metropolitan areas.

Platform for recording losses from storm Kristin is now running