Alandroal emerges from excessive debt
The Alandroal Council, in the district of Évora, is no longer in a situation of excessive debt and will request early exit from the Municipal Adjustment Plan (PAM), the mayor revealed this Monday.
Speaking to Lusa, the mayor of Alandroal, João Grilo (PS), indicated that the municipality left this situation at the end of 2024, whose financial year presented “a positive debt capacity of over 1.3 million euros”. “Between debt reduction and increased revenue, through the capture of community funds and other investments, we ended up bringing forward the amortization and exit from the PAM , therefore, it is an important moment to recover autonomy”, he assumed.
According to João Grilo, the Alandroal Council, which is now “no longer over-indebted for the first time since 2006 or 2007”, will request the termination of the adjustment plan with the Municipal Support Fund (FAM). In 2016, under the then CDU administration, this Alentejo municipality took out a loan worth 16.5 million euros from the FAM, under the PAM, to pay debts to suppliers.
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In his statements to Lusa, the mayor said that the council has since had its taxes at the maximum, with restrictions on making investments and prevented from hiring employees beyond those provided for in the transfer of powers. “ We had a kind of troika in the municipality to, basically, promote the rebalancing of the accounts for as long as necessary and, as long as the municipality was in excessive debt, it could never ask to leave the plan”, he said. The mayor stressed that the council intends to leave the PAM so as to “no longer have to comply with the limitations on management autonomy” , even though “the commitments associated with the financial loan [with the FAM] extend until 2035”.
With the overcoming of the excessive debt situation, the council unanimously approved, in its most recent meeting, held last week, the beginning of the process of terminating the PAM, pending the 'green light' from the municipal assembly . "With these deliberations and with proof from DGAL [Directorate-General for Local Authorities] that we are now below the excessive debt, we will formalize with the FAM the request to terminate the plan", he reiterated.
Recalling that the repayment of the loan taken out with the FAM began in 2018, the mayor pointed out that, so far, it has been possible to reduce around five million euros from the value of this debt , which stands at around 12 million. “And, overall, we have reduced 6.5 million euros from the municipality's debt”, he added.
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