The Servir Portimão Coalition, the main opposition force in the city's Chamber, refuses the role of «Santos Milagreiros» to the current municipal executive, led by the socialist Isilda Gomes.
Reacting, in a statement, to the announcement of the judgment of the Court of Auditors on the granting of a prior visa to loan contracts of the Municipal Support Fund of Portimão, which in practice approves the FAM and the PAM, the coalition led by councilor José Pedro Caçorino considers that «they cannot be those who led us to this financial disaster that is now emerging, as Santos Milagreiros, as the protagonists of the salvation of our municipality».
The Coalition, which includes members of the CDS and independents, among others, argues that «Portimão needs a WFP adjusted to a new municipal development strategy and based on a new model of economic and social development, anchored in the attraction of investment that allows for significantly shortening the repayment time of the loans now made viable».
At a time when candidacies for the 2017 Local Elections are already being aligned, which will take place precisely in a year, Servir Portimão defends, in its communiqué, that “only with new protagonists and a real new policy will the WFP be properly reformulated it could be an instrument of effective hope for a better future for all Portimonenses. Only with other people at the head of the Municipality's destinies, with a different vision of what our future should be, can another PAM be a real instrument for Portimão to start dreaming again».
The Coalition recalls that this approval by the Court of Auditors came "at the end of several years of some financial rescue plans successively failed" and recalls having assumed, "from the very beginning, its frontal disagreement with this proposal of FAM and PAM ».
"We continue to consider, despite the decision now known, that such instruments will, in the medium/long term, be financially unfeasible and that, instead of directly attacking the problems that have led us so far, they are limited to shooting for a farther horizon a putative resolution of them», he adds.
«Despite the spirit of exaltation of some who only have the short term as a horizon», the Coalition Servir Portimão emphasizes that, «among other problems, the WFP is based on unrealistic forecasts of revenue evolution and does not adequately guard against a more pessimistic scenario of pending issues. procedures that the Municipality of Portimão is currently facing in the courts».
In other words, argues the coalition led by José Pedro Caçorino, «it should be kept in mind, for future memory, that this version of the WFP will necessarily be a victim of revenue evolution over the next few decades, and it is clear that the current permanent Executive of the City Council of Portimão cannot guarantee the financial feasibility and sustainability of this instrument to Portimão».
Servir Portimão also stresses, in its statement, that «we must not forget that Portimão's taxpayers will, through their taxes and fees, support the financial effort over the next 25 years that will allow, yes, to think about a hypothetical feasibility of the the financial health of the Municipality of Portimão».
"Despite the attempt to take political advantage of some, it will be the Portimão, with the annual payment of taxes and fees always at maximum values, to support the main effort of financial adjustment that Portimão is condemned to carry out over the next few decades," the statement adds. of the coalition.
"Although little is mentioned about this aspect, it must be stressed that the destination of a large part of the money that will now be freed up by the FAM loans will be destined not to settle debts for small businessmen, but above all to pay large sums to banking institutions."
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