Socialist Isilda Gomes, president of the Portimão City Council, has guaranteed that the Civil Protection Fee, approved in the previous term, cannot be revoked because of the municipality's appeal to the Municipal Support Fund (FAM), adding that, for the same For this reason, the IMI has to be kept at the maximum rate. But a proposal for deliberation presented on Tuesday, at the Chamber meeting, by Councilor Nelson Freitas, from the CDU, shows that this is not quite the case.
The proposal was rejected, with four votes against the permanent executive (3 PS + 1 PSD), and three votes in favor of the entire opposition (CDU, Left Bloc and coalition «Servir Portimão»), but Nelson Freitas , in statements to the Sul Informação, announces: «we will continue to fight against the Civil Protection Tax and against the IMI at the most, knowing that it will be difficult, because the permanent executive has a majority».
The deliberation proposal foresaw the repeal of the Regulation of the Municipal Civil Protection Tax and was, according to the communist councilor, "the first step to revoke and extinguish the tax itself".
As for the argument used by the socialist mayor that the rate cannot be revoked, nor can the IMI be lowered, due to the algarvian municipality's adhesion to the FAM, Nelson Freitas presented the case of the Aveiro City Council, which is, along with Portimão, one of the most indebted municipalities in the country (150 million euros) and which also resorted to the same Municipal Support Fund.
Despite the appeal to the FAM, last Friday, October 31st, the Chamber of Aveiro, chaired by Ribau Esteves (PSD/CDS/PPM), approved an increase in the IMI from 0,3% to an intermediate value of 0,4%, before reaching the maximum value next year (0,5%). At the same meeting, the central authority of the country confirmed the extinction of the Municipal Civil Protection Tax and the repeal of the respective Regulation.
«Well, if Aveiro, which is in a similar situation, can do that, Portimão can too. The law is the same for everyone», Nelson Freitas told Sul Informação, concluding that «the maintenance of the Civil Protection Rate and the increase to the maximum, at once, of the IMI, when the law allows this increase to be made gradually, in two years, is a political decision of the executive and they do not result, as the president has wanted to make us believe, from an imposition motivated by the adhesion to the FAM».
The communist councilor also based his proposal for a deliberation recalling the “fragile” economic situation in the Algarve and, in particular, in the municipality of Portimão.
«The analysis of the evolution in volume of the regionalized GDP, provided by INE, allows us to confirm that the Algarve region is the one where the impact of the economic and financial crisis that erupted in the 2nd semester of 2007 was most felt in our country. Since then, this region has gone into recession and has never left. Between 2008 and 2012, the latest information available on regionalised GDP, the GDP of the Algarve region fell by 14,8%, while in the same period, at national level, this fall was 5,5%. It's been five consecutive years of falling GDP, the biggest recession in decades and the biggest in the country», stresses Nelson Freitas.
“Inseparable from the deep economic recession is the vertiginous fall in purchasing power at the regional level. The region's GDP per capita, in purchasing power parities (PPS), has been falling since 2007, which means that, at the end of 2012, this region had a purchasing power 22% lower than the EU28 average. The drop in purchasing power in this region was 9 percentage points in the last five years, while the drop for the entire country was 2 percentage points», explained the opposition councilor.
Councilor Nelson Freitas: if Aveiro, which is in a similar situation, can extinguish the civil protection tax and put the IMI at an intermediate rate, Portimão can too. the law is the same for everyone
In the text of the deliberation proposal, Nelson Freitas also points out that, «by raising the fees and taxes to the maximum, the Municipality withdraws money from the municipality's population, and consequently, withdraws it from the local economy».
«This policy, at the municipal level of maximum rates and taxes, added to the fiscal policy of the PPD/CDS Government, makes an effort fall on individuals and companies, adding new sacrifices to the existing difficulties arising from the looting policies . It is humanly impossible that the Portimonenses can support such a great fiscal effort and it is socially unfair that this should happen», can also be read in the document submitted by the communist mayor for a vote at the Chamber meeting.
Considering that "the so-called Civil Protection Tax is nothing more than the instrumentalization of civil protection and the difficulties of firefighters - whose financing responsibility lies with the central government - to, in this way, withdraw almost one million euros a year from the pockets of Portimonenses", and that "the citizens and companies are already on the threshold of economic support, in view of such a high effort of taxes and fees to pay", the CDU proposed to the City Council the repeal of the Regulation of the Municipal Civil Protection Fee of the Municipality of Portimão. The proposal, as mentioned before, was rejected by the permanent executive, constituted by the president of the Chamber, two councilors from the PS and one elected by the PSD.
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