Former President of the Republic Cavaco Silva on Saturday believed that the housing crisis is “the result of the failure” of government policies, expressing “many doubts” about the success of the executive’s package, which poses a “credibility problem” has.
Cavaco Silva spoke at the conference on the occasion of the 30th anniversary of the Special Rehousing Program (PER), an initiative of the Chamber of Lisbon, in a highly critical speech about the new “More Housing” program and the actions of the socialist government led by Antonio Costa.
“As has been underlined, the current crisis is the result of the failure of government housing policies over the past seven years, with very high social costs for thousands of families,” he accused, with the audience including Lisbon Mayor Carlos Moedas and PSD leader Luís Montenegro.
Despite identifying positive measures such as the end of ‘golden visas’, the former head of state pointed to ‘other negative measures’ as the government’s new housing package ‘has a credibility problem’.
“As the government’s track record over the last seven years has not been positive in delivering on the promises made, the new housing program suffers from the credibility problem inherent in the policies of the current executive,” he said.
Cavaco Silva left a series of advice to the government for these measures, including that the executive “leans on the credibility of the city councils” on this matter, but expressed “many doubts whether the new program will be successful”.
“In addition to the lack of credibility, there is another factor inherent in the current government that casts doubt on the practical effectiveness of the program. It is the trust factor. During its seven years in power, the government has best done for investor confidence,” he criticized.
Source: DN
