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The budget for 2021 of the majority PSD in the Chamber of Ponte da Barca, which amounts to 21.7 million euros, was approved with a casting vote of the president, after a tie in the vote on the document, announced today.
Of the four elements that make up the social democratic majority in that municipality, in addition to the casting vote of the president, Augusto Marinho, the vice president, José Alfredo Oliveira, and one of the three councilors made the 2021 Activities and Budgets Plan (PAO) viable. elected by the PS, Inocencio Araújo.
The Social Democratic councilor Fernanda Marques abstained and Maria José Gonçalves, a councilor also elected by the PSD, but who in 2019 was dismissed from the vice presidency of the municipality and emptied of the areas she occupied, voted against, as did two councilors of the PS, Pedro Sousa Lobo and Ricardo Armada.
Contacted today by the Lusa agency, the mayor of Ponte da Barca devalued the use of the casting vote.
“I don’t see any problem. It is a normal process and shows well the maturity of our democracy. Things are debated and people vote naturally, ”he said.
Augusto Marinho pointed out that “the big bets” of the municipality in 2021 are “economic development and social functions, supporting families and companies affected by the covid-19 pandemic.”
He also noted “significant investments” in water supply and basic sanitation.
In October 2018, the then vice president of the municipality, abstained from voting on the 2019 budget, claiming that “not having been involved” in its preparation decided “unilaterally” by the mayor and, two months later, he told Lusa to be victim of workplace harassment by President Augusto Marinho.
In January 2019, the autarky, led by the social democrat Augusto Marinho, justified the decision to cease the functions of Maria José Gonçalves as a full-time councilor with “public political disarticulation”.
The 2019 budget of the majority PSD was made possible thanks to one of the three councilors elected by the PS. By order of the mayor, councilor Inocêncio Araújo spent part time and saw his promotion from operational officer to senior technician of the Ponte da Barca Chamber approved by a majority.
Contacted today by Lusa, Councilor Fernanda Marques, who replaced Councilor José António Ribeiro da Costa who, in 2019, requested the suspension of the mandate and ended up resigning from office, sent the arguments in support of abstention to a vote.
“Despite being a personally difficult decision, it is with enormous conviction that I say that this document does not effectively take into account budgetary principles or address the great challenges we will face in 2021 at the social level,” he says in the statement, adding that the budget “Presents a stale value given the reality of the execution of the municipality’s accounts.”
“We will increase the debt of the municipality if the budgeted income does not materialize. Analyzing the budgets of recent years, we know in advance that we will not have this income and, from now on, we are questioning the principle of budgetary stability ”, he reinforced.
Socialist councilor Pedro Sousa Lobo assured that the PAO for 2021 “foresees more indebtedness, not to establish support measures for families and companies in the municipality, as would be necessary in the current pandemic situation of covid-19.”
“It is a misleading and unrealistic document as evidenced by the low percentages of execution of the previous budgets,” says the PS vote statement, also sent to Lusa.
He also mentioned that “this is a cold budget, without sensitivity to the drama that families and companies are currently experiencing as a result of the covid-19 crisis.”
Pedro Sousa Lobo also highlighted that, “in three years Augusto Marinho lost three councilors”, considering it as “a national record, probably ‘Guinness'”.
“More serious is being an obvious sign of the evil that Augusto Marinho’s lack of leadership does to the municipality. We have a municipal executive without a future strategy, without national political weight and entangled in successive polemics, “he added.
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