The number of citizens’ complaints against municipalities increased by 21% between January and August to 1528, compared to the same period last year, when 1261 complaints were registered, according to data collected by the Portal da Queixa and released this Tuesday. That’s another 267 contestations.
The municipal councils of Lisbon, Almada and Loures are at the top of the blacklist. The municipality of the capital, chaired by the Social Democrat Carlos Moedas, tops the ranking of complaints with a volume of complaints of 23.6%, which corresponds to an increase of 25% compared to 2022. This is followed by the municipality of Almada, led by the socialist Inês de Medeiros, which receives 12.8% of complaints, an increase of 14% compared to last year. In third place is the Câmara de Loures, which accounts for 5.2% of the occurrences, led by the socialist Ricardo Leão, who witnessed an increase of more than 70% in complaints this year.
In the north of the country, and in fourth place, the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia, led by socialist Eduardo Vítor Rodrigues, is the target of 4.3% of complaints filed in the first eight months of the year generated. Then comes the Chamber of Porto, chaired by the independent Rui Moreira, with 3.8% of complaints registered by the Portal da Queixa, between January and August. Despite the fifth place, the municipality of Invicta was the one that registered the highest growth in complaints: there are 107% more compared to the same period of 2022.
According to the survey data, the lack of hygiene is the main complaint of residents who address the Lisbon City Council: 16.7% of the incidents relate to this problem. In the municipality of Rui Moreira, 41.6% of complaints relate to public lighting.
With regard to the municipalities’ performance in responding to and resolving the reported problems, the top three Satisfaction Indexes being the Câmara da Nazaré, with a consumer-rated score of 90.8 out of 100; the Chamber of Sesimbra (89.6/100) and the Chamber of Lagos (73.8/100).
In terms of complaints by district, Lisbon City Hall continues to position itself at the top of the list, collecting 63% of complaints from the region; the municipality of Porto follows (10.1%); the municipality of Braga (3.1%); the administration of Coimbra (3%) and the Chamber of Faro (2.8%). However, the Algarve municipality was the only one to register a decrease in the number of complaints compared to 2022 (-20%).
In terms of the monthly volume of monthly complaints, each month generated almost 200 complaints in the first half, while in July and August already more than 220 complaints were registered, with 255 and 221 respectively.
Waste, works and public lighting
Among the top five reasons for complaints are problems related to a lack of cleanliness (22%), namely the inability to collect waste and clean land, a reason that has increased by 35% compared to 2022.
Generating 15.8% of complaints concerns poorly executed work, including delays, damage caused and traffic caused by the intervention, a theme that rises by 12.9%.
The cause of 7.2% of the incidents is public lighting, where limitations are indicated by the failure or delay of repairs. This reason has increased by 10% compared to last year.
Noise is responsible for 6.3% of complaints, with residents reporting noise situations outside legal hours. The theme is growing by 8.5% compared to 2022. 5.3% of complaints are still related to a lack of parking space, vehicles in inappropriate places or fines. The reason exceeds the registered volume by 25% in 2022.
The founder of Portal da Queixa, Pedro Lourenço, believes that the new digital reality has stimulated greater societal intervention by citizens in identifying failures, problems and improvements, as “the response and resolution capacity of the municipalities is a strong barometer of citizens’ satisfaction and trust towards local authorities,” the statement released on Tuesday said.
“This new digital reality puts additional pressure on the work of elected candidates, forcing them to pay attention to the satisfaction of their citizens, on pain of being penalized in their re-election bid, due to the increase in the power of the public . opinion,” says Pedro Lourenço.
Salomé Pinto is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
