Mayors of Porto and Lisbon criticize decentralization
During a conference “Local Power, PRR and Decentralization”, in Vila Nova de Gaia, in the district of Porto, the mayors were unanimous in saying that the current decentralization “is not a true decentralization” because what the Government is doing is ” get rid of what you don’t want to pay”.
In the opinion of the two responsible, decentralization deviates from transferring competences and resources in equal measure, something that, in practice, is not happening.
“Decentralization is still a good idea if it’s not a lie and this path we’ve been taking is a path that objectively will lead to deceiving and alienating the electorate“, said the independent Rui Moreira.
The mayor considered that the municipalities will be “glaziers of schools and health centers” and in social action will “plug some holes”.
For Rui Moreira, “this so-called decentralization is just” a transfer of tasks. “It is what has been experienced and what will continue to happen”, he stressed.
In the same opinion, Carlos Moedas stated that this decentralization is a “comedy of mistakes”, in which “selling the idea that it is decentralizing when what the PS government is doing is getting rid of what it does not want to pay“.
“Not this decentralization anymore, this decentralization is not a true decentralization, don’t count on this one”, he underlined.
The mayor of Lisbon understood that decentralization will make municipalities “increasingly guilty”.
The sums corresponding to the transfer of competences to the municipalities must now be aggregated into a single fund, indexed “to a percentage of tax revenues”, announced the Minister of Territorial Cohesion, Ana Abrunhosa, in December.
In an assessment of the advances in the process of decentralizing powers from the central administration to local authorities, Ana Abrunhosa considered that “2022 was a very good year”.
In the set of 21 decentralized competences, in 2022 the municipalities received from the Decentralization Financing Fund more 200 million euros than in 2021, in a total of 1.2 billion euros.