The delay has been recognised by the Government, which highlights the “chronic lack” of specialised resources at the institute.

The parliamentary group headed by Paulo Núncio questioned the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing about whether it is aware that delayed processes at IMT are hindering economic activity in the automotive sector and what measures it intends to take to ensure that the procedures are carried out in a timely manner.

In response to the deputies, the ministry overseen by Miguel Pinto Luz indicates that it is aware of the situation and is analysing it with IMT with a view to resolving it. However, he explains that “the IMT is struggling with a chronic lack of specialised resources”.

“Despite the constant recruitment procedures for workers in the vehicle sector, the results have proven insufficient to meet needs, with the IMT continuing to launch recruitment procedures and study the possibility of establishing synergies with leading entities in the engineering sector, in order to increase installed capacity”, he points out.

The Government guarantees, however, that “the IMT is strongly committed to reducing response times in terms of vehicle approval and transformation, without losing the required technical rigor”, appealing to “the contribution of companies, since over time there has been a deficient submission of processes to the IMT services”.

He further explains that another measure intended to improve response capacity consists of a “process of segmenting claims related to the vehicle area, with the aim of distinguishing those that, due to their level of complexity, require detailed and specialized technical analysis, from those that do not require such analysis.”

“The segmentation aims to reorganise IMT services, creating specialised teams to deal with more complex claims, promoting the standardisation of procedures, reducing pending issues and the average time to complete processes,” he explains.

He also recalls that since 2023, a set of inspections have been transferred to the Vehicle Technical Inspection Centers (CITV), and the set of inspections planned for delegation to the CITV is being “re-evaluated, prioritising those that have the greatest impact in terms of workload and that provide significant gains for citizens and companies”.