The ministry said in a statement that “following the legal impossibility of continuing with the international call for tenders launched last August, the boards of directors of STCP (buses) and Metro do Porto decided to reopen the sub-concession procedure for the two companies”.
The statement also said that the proposals would have to be delivered within 12 days after which the juries would take their decisions.
“The selection criteria is exclusively the price so as to ensure savings for the taxpayers and to avoid subjective judgments about the proposals”, the state continued.
On 14 August, the government announced that the Spanish consortium TMB/Moventis, which had been awarded the concession, had not delivered a bank guarantee needed to take over the operation of STCP, which caused the collapse of that company’s sub-concession and the Metro do Porto, which was to last 10 years.