The chair of the company managing Portugal’s emergency communications system has said today that it will deliver the first SIRESP radios to parish councils in the North in November, and then extend distribution to the rest of the country.
In an interview with Lusa news agency, Lieutenant-General Paulo Viegas Nunes explained that the aim is to distribute the radios during the ‘Bootcamp’ (an initiative aimed at network users in a specific area), which will take place in the northern region.
Under the PRR (Plan for Recovery and Resilience Plan), the authorities plan to equip all parishes with a ‘Starlink’ data connection, a satellite telephone and a terminal for the Integrated Emergency and Security Networks System of Portugal (SIRESP), as well as a generator, to enable a response in the event of a disaster.
Viegas Nunes reported that the tender, namely the procurement of the equipment, was completed in September, with “the distribution and implementation phase” now underway.
However, he cautioned that this process requires validation tests for each terminal in each specific context. The company purchased 4,000 SIRESP terminals for parish councils and local councils, and these are now being “programmed (…) as they are programmed, we will deliver them.”
Viegas Nunes also gave his account of the 780 SIRESP SA generators, which the PRR had planned to purchase, but ultimately did not. This situation arose from differences between Minister for Interior Administration Luís Neves and Ricardo Carrilho, the former Secretary-General of Portugal’s Ministry for Internal Affairs, who left his post in a maelstrom of acrimony last week.
“There was a specification, issued by the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Internal Administration (SGMAI), regarding a specific capacity for the generators. We conducted a more detailed analysis and concluded that we needed higher-capacity generators. We revised the proposals and submitted them to the General Secretariat of MAI,” explains the SIRESP chair.
However, the PRR could only support a smaller number of generators at that power output, so SIRESP SA submitted a new proposal with fewer generators, but the same capacity.
“SIRESP SA submitted its proposal to the General Secretariat on time, complete with quotations and a preliminary market analysis, and we were also surprised when the tender was published and the value assigned to the generators we had proposed was well below the price,” he said, adding that this process will be “reviewed and, naturally, relaunched”.
Following his resignation, Ricardo Carrilho raised several allegations against SIRESP SA, stating that in July he had proposed to the minister that the company be wound up and merged into the General Secretariat.
When asked about the relationship between the SGMAI and SIRESP SA, Viegas Nunes replied that “in terms of work, the teams have always cooperated exceptionally well”.
“That is why we could honour the commitment to launch all the tenders. There were, in fact, instances of disagreement regarding matters that had, to some extent, been agreed with Ricardo Carrilho, who has since left his post, and which clashed with the very structure of the company’s operations,” he added, clarifying that he accepts transforming SIRESP SA into a public institute, but considers its direct integration into the SGMAI challenging.
SIRESP “is a network under the sovereignty of the state, serves various ministries and has a vast range of users”, in addition to “additional security requirements”.
“It is not just one ministry. Having an entity of this nature as an organic part of a ministry would mean transforming the SIRESP network into a department or directorate for communications and information systems within a ministry. From a mission perspective, it is essential to maintain a sovereign network with these characteristics separate from an organisation of this nature,” he said.
The PS also intended to wind up SIRESP SA and integrate it into the SGMAI – an idea which, according to Viegas Nunes, who had headed the company between 2022 and 2024, was reversed after he presented a proposal to José Luís Carneiro, Portugal’s minister for Internal Affairs at the time, to bring the SIRESP network closer to military structure and discipline.
“I naturally put forward the proposal I did, to maintain its own identity rather than being incorporated into the General Secretariat, and Pombeiro (deputy secretary of the Ministry of Internal Administration, who resigned in May) intended to do just that.”
António Pombeiro, Deputy Secretary-General of the Ministry of Internal Administration, resigned in May after it emerged that Paulo Viegas Nunes had been reappointed to lead the company that manages SIRESP.
Viegas Nunes emphasised that this rapprochement with military structures “is the plan” he believes in and said he considered it “undeniable that there is an alignment” between Pombeiro and Carrilho – both of whom are now, for all intents and purposes, out of the picture.
The SIRESP network is the Portuguese state’s exclusive communications network for the command, control and coordination of communications in all emergency and security situations; it meets the needs of over 40,000 users and handles more than 35 million calls annually.
SIRESP currently serves 234 organisations.
Source : LUSA