Opposition in VRSA with many criticisms and doubts about the closing of the SGU

The implications of business closure, particularly for workers, are unclear.

Photo: Fabiana Saboya|Sul Informação

Lots of doubts, a “we told you so” and strong criticism. This is how the two main opposition parties see the approval by the majority of the PSD of the dissolution of the municipal company Sociedade de Gestão Urbana – SGU, at the VRSA Chamber meeting yesterday, July 1st.

The municipal company will close due to the negative results it has been accumulating in recent years. The PS, the party that elected two councilors for the Chamber, speaks of a liability close to 100 million euros, which will, from the moment the company is dissolved, will be transferred to the accounts of the Municipal Chamber, already with great difficulties. financial.

As announced yesterday by the VRSA Chamber, the idea is to internalize in the chamber the services that were provided by the SGU. On the other hand, the PSD executive also guaranteed that it would “safeguard the jobs of almost a hundred workers, through internalization”.

In other words, the municipal company disappears, but the expenses it generates and the debt it accumulated – but also the capital gains – all pass to the autarchy.

It is precisely this internalization process that raises more doubts for the opposition, which recalled that it had been warning for a long time about the company's difficult situation. This is because, said the PS, what was included in the approved proposal was “the internalization of services, with no commitment from the city council regarding the employees of the SGU company”.

Socialists say that "it is not clear and transparent the responsibilities that the city council will receive with the dissolution of the VRSA-SGU", nor "what will happen to the 94 workers of the company". Therefore, they voted against the dissolution proposal.

On the other hand, the CDU, which has a councilor in the City Council, wants "the origin and impact of a monstrous debt that will pass from the SGU to the City Council to be clarified, clarifications that so far the majority PSD still do not give".

Despite admitting that «extinction and internalization are inevitable and desired paths», the same party warns that it is necessary to treat the process with due care. "The CDU will fight this process so that the rights of SGU workers are respected, listening to their representative organizations, ensuring that there is no loss of rights", warned the communists.

The two opposition parties took the opportunity to leave strong criticisms of the PSD executive led by Conceição Cabrita.

The CDU accuses the PSD of having used the SGU, over the 12 years the company has existed, as "an instrument of disaster and bargaining policy."

"Hundreds of millions of euros, through the SGU, escaped the scrutiny and democratic control of municipal bodies, hundreds of contracts were signed without the population having any knowledge of their content, it was the use of the SGU as an instrument to give shelter to less clear situations of cronyism and friendship, it was the carrying out of ruinous deals for the municipality, which resulted in an unsustainable situation both in financial terms, in legal terms and in the political sphere for a long time», accuse the communists.

The PS, which in its public position speaks of "swindlers" and "con artists", says that the PSD "deliberately lied to Vilarealenses", for being "afraid to show reality, because they knew it coincided with the electoral period".

«The Socialist Party will be here when the company closes on December 31, 2019, to assess the value of the bankrupt, calculated at around 100 million euros. This debt will be added to the existing debt in the City Council and thus we will reach an estimated value of around 300 million euros», they added.

“Our great-grandchildren will be called upon to pay the colossal debt of these people who govern, or rather, misgoverned, the City Council since 2005,” concluded the socialists.

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