PSD President Luís Montenegro this Tuesday accused the Prime Minister of “playing with Portugal and governance”, citing the Mais Habitação program as an example.
In Braga, on the sidelines of a meeting with the immigrant community in that city, Montenegro said that “even the members of the government” can no longer defend that program.
“Doctor António Costa plays with Portugal, plays with governance, tries out new policies. Seven years later, he discovered he needed a Ministry of Housing,” he said.
According to Montenegro, “no one in Portugal is able to defend” the program presented last week: “Not even the members of the government anymore. I even think they are ashamed of it,” he said.
For the PSD leader, Costa does everything “on his knees”, “he is a repentista” and “makes changes to essential pillars of public policy from morning to afternoon”.
“It makes the proposals within the government and prepares only on its knees to hold press conferences,” Montenegro added.
For the PSD leader, the prime minister is “disoriented” because he “in one fell swoop” tells the country that he wants to strengthen the process of decentralization of powers and then “in an essential government policy, such as housing, does not even speak to local authorities or with the governments of the autonomous regions”.
Montenegro said the PSD is ready to offer the socialist executive its package of housing measures “so that the government can legislate properly”.
On Thursday, the Prime Minister presented a package of measures, estimated at 900 million euros, to respond to the housing crisis in Portugal with five axes: increasing the supply of housing used for housing, simplifying permitting procedures, increasing the number of houses in the rental market, fights speculation and protects families.
Rental of homes by the State for subletting, rent arrears (by the State) after three months of non-compliance, exemption from IRS on capital gains of homes sold to the State and municipalities, suspension of new local housing permits (excluding of an inland area) and a 150 million euro rule for municipalities to carry out forced labor were some of the measures announced.
The Mais Habitação program was approved by the Council of Ministers and will be publicly discussed for a month. The proposals will go back to the Council of Ministers for final approval on March 16, after which some measures still have to be passed by the Assembly of the Republic.
Source: DN
