Anafre yesterday accused the Government of “engineering” that reduces the amount allocated through the Parish Financing Fund (FFF), harming the amount that these local authorities will receive in the coming years through the State Budget.
The National Association of Parishes (Anafre) was heard in parliament yesterday as part of the discussion on the State Budget proposal for 2024 (OE2024) and gave a negative opinion to the document.
The parishes will receive a global amount of 349,4 million euros (ME), according to the OE2024 proposal, an amount they consider “manifestly insufficient given the significant increase in charges”, and which represents an increase of 56,2 ME compared to to the previous year.
In addition to considering it “insufficient” to cover the increase in charges, namely to support the increase in salaries for local administration employees provided for by law, Anafre criticizes the “engineering” behind this increase.
“The increase is there, but it is done in a way that we do not like. Because we have a 9 million Euro increase in the FFF and then we have a 46 ME increase in additional [amounts]. What will happen is that when, in 2024, we are negotiating the 2025 budget, the basis for negotiation will be what is in the FFF and not what is in the additional, so the amount for 2025 will be highly harmed”, he explained. the president of Anafre, Jorge Veloso.
As part of a discussion in the field, ANAFRE today proposed a 3,5% increase in the calculation of the FFF, that is, in the arithmetic average of parishes' participation in State taxes, instead of the current 2,5%.
“And then let there be this additional amount”, said Olga Freire, vice-president of Anafre, highlighting that it makes no sense for the increase to be mainly in an item that is inconstant.
Jorge Amador, the other vice-president of ANAFRE, accused the Ministry of Finance of not having respected the association, which was not even consulted: “What was done was political engineering. This is because, by putting less money into the FFF and adding strength to the additional pie, what is being done is that in the coming years these 3.091 parishes will be harmed in the next State Budgets. And this is what Anafre deeply disagrees with. And it is one of the reasons for the negative conclusion of our opinion,” he said.
To the deputies, Anafre also proposed increasing the participation of parishes in the urban IMI rate from 1% to 3% and warned that the budget foreseen for the parishes of Lisbon, set globally at 76 ME, 770,1 thousand euros more than in the previous year, it is “sufficiently sufficient to ensure the exercise of all powers”.
In this case, the association that represents the parishes argues that the values attributed to the parishes of Lisbon should be updated annually, in accordance with the inflation value of the previous year. In 2024, the update should be 7,8%.
The association highlighted that, although the latest budgets refer to a 20% increase for councils in the scope of services provided by citizens' spaces housed by the parishes, this value was never actually updated nor received by the local authorities.
He also criticized the fact that parishes are subject to paying the full VAT rate, even when it comes to purchasing goods to provide a public service.
In the opinion, Anafre also considers that the remuneration of parish councilors should be increased, as the OE proposal sets the global amount of remuneration for elected representatives of parish councils at 30,6 ME, “that is, a value exactly equal ” to that set in 2023, “which appears unacceptable and contrary to the annual update resulting from increases in public administration”.
The Government's State Budget proposal for 2024 was approved on Tuesday in parliament, in general, with votes in favor from the absolute majority of the PS and abstentions from the sole deputies of PAN and Livre.
The final global vote is scheduled for November 29th.
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