The system will cover 38 public places and, according to the mayor, the contract for the provision of services will be signed soon.

Next, “the company will have six months to implement the system”, added Bruno Pereira, who was speaking to journalists after the weekly meeting of the municipal executive.

“It is expected that by the end of the first four months of next year, we will be able to have this system operational if from a technological point of view, everything goes well”, he highlighted.

Bruno Pereira stressed that this is “a very important investment”, pointing out that, firstly, it allows the security forces to respond more quickly.

In addition, he added, “it has a deterrent effect” and “can be used as evidence”.

In April, Funchal City Council, the main city council in Madeira, approved the opening of an international public tender for the acquisition of 44 video surveillance cameras, worth 1.7 million euros.

In November last year, the executive (led by PSD/CDS-PP) approved the opening of an international public tender for the installation of 81 video surveillance cameras in the city, worth 1.4 million euros, with the expectation that they would be installed during the summer of this year, but the procedure was revoked.

At the beginning of April, at an extraordinary meeting of the Municipal Assembly, the vice-president of the City Council highlighted that this was a “complex tender from a technical point of view” and explained that the Court of Auditors had warned of the need to establish the multi-annual nature of the investment.

Furthermore, it was necessary to amend the specifications to create “more robustness from a legal point of view” in relation to the technical capacity of competing companies and the candidature of entities that presented themselves as part of a consortium.

According to the local authority, unlike what was established in the first competition (81 cameras), this new procedure allows “greater coverage with fewer cameras”.

The devices have different types, with five fixed cameras, 25 multi-sensor cameras and 14 rotating cameras, according to the municipality.

The Funchal executive is made up of six councillors elected by the PSD/CDS-PP coalition and five from the Confiança coalition, led by the PS.