The PSD councilors in the Chamber of Portimão accuse the PS council executive of «lying to the people of Portimão» and of playing «low politics», following a note from the Municipality of Portimão, which claimed that the two social democratic councilors had proposed granting scholarships «to all students who presented candidacies, regardless of the application of the criteria», something that the main opposition party denies.
In a statement sent to the Sul Informação, Rui André and Ana Fazenda, PSD councillors, assure that they have never proposed the indiscriminate attribution of scholarships to those who apply, but rather the revision of the Municipal Regulation for the Attribution of Scholarships to Higher Education Students, «a document that has already it is outdated and out of step with reality, as is recognized by the permanent executive of the Chamber and also mentioned in our proposal in need of improvements and updating».
This regulation determines that the number of scholarships to be awarded in 2023 is 35, «with the councilors elected by the PSD, Rui André and Ana Fazenda, alerted, at the time, to the eventual need for this number to be revised, given the social situation that lives and the need for support for families with children studying in higher education».
«From the technical report and analysis of the applications, 70 processes result, 15 of which are excluded for not meeting the requirements and criteria of the regulation and 55 applications are serialized, of which the 35 scholarships decided upon in a Chamber meeting are awarded, thus leaving 20 students / applications outside the support with this municipal scholarship with a unit value of 2000 euros», they frame.
The proposal of the social-democratic councilors, which the Sul Informação had access, requests that, "given that the number of scholarships and the respective amount are fixed, annually, by deliberation of the Chamber, the allocation of the remaining 20 scholarships to serial candidates be deliberated".
The city council executive PS claimed that the PSD intended to «extend the allocation of university scholarships to all students who submitted applications, regardless of the application of the criteria, contrary to the previous deliberation of the chamber that set the amounts and number of scholarships to be awarded ».
This despite the fact that, in addition to the extension of support to the other 20 students who, according to the PSD, were graded, his proposal only asks that «the Municipal Regulation be reviewed for the allocation of the respective scholarships, which is out of step with the present reality, of social crisis and economic, preventing many families from bearing the costs arising from the costs of their children's education».
This sentence, as well as the "surreal and clumsy declaration of vote" by the PS executive, who rejected the proposal, in which he stated that he was unavailable to "discuss individual measures, devoid of any kind of holistic vision, socially unjust, and whose sole purpose is serve as a political weapon in the PSD social networks of Portimão», led the PSD councilors to call the socialists' press release a «propagandist».
A position that, for Rui André and Ana Fazenda, «reflects the enormous concern of the Socialist Party of Portimão, not with the people of Portimão and their problems, but rather with the growing dissatisfaction on the part of the population and the educational community of Portimão about the state of Education in the county".
As for the «extraordinary package of support for students and families» announced by the executive led by Isilda Gomes at the same Chamber Meeting and that will still be «presented and discussed with the Municipal Council of Education», the elected PSD consider the announcement «intimely, weak and not very enlightening».
The package was, they believe, «a basic reaction to this growing discontent and the lack of arguments presented when rejecting the proposal presented by the PSD, perfectly framed in the regulation in force, since, following its discussion, the Socialist Party ends up acknowledge that you agree with it and that you may even award these twenty scholarships».
Comments