"Nobody likes paying tolls", Carina Oliveira began by saying, warning, however, that "whenever a contract with the State is changed unilaterally, things don't go well for the public purse".
The former deputy was heard at the parliamentary committee on Economy, Public Works and Housing, after being appointed by the Government as a member of the AMT Board of Directors and after obtaining a positive opinion from the Recruitment and Selection Committee for Public Administration (CReSAP).
This alert was left after a question from the social-democratic deputy Marco Claudino, about his position regarding the end of toll payments in the ex-SCUT in the interior of the country and Via do Infante, from 1 January, on a proposal from the PS, approved in parliament.
At a parliamentary hearing in June, the president of the AMT, Ana Paula Vitorino, spoke out against the measure.
Carina Oliveira highlighted that even exempting the user from payment, "there is always an inherent payment" to the use of the infrastructure.
"The contracts we have on the table may not be desirable, but they have a history, they have a circumstance", she pointed out, considering that the regulator must have a vision of 'what to do with what we have?'.
Socialist deputy José Carlos Barbosa highlighted the "concern for the concessionaires" shown by the nominee and countered that the PS is "more concerned about people".
For Chega, deputy Carlos Barbosa accused deputy Marco Claudino, from Torres Vedras, of speaking "with his mouth full", since his region "is served by plenty of public transport", as opposed to others such as Guarda or Covilhã.