“Useless works” cost 900 million. Being 150 for “stopping tsunamis”

Nearly 900 million euros in “invented works”, the phrase used by Sérgio Marques and Miguel Sousa [antigos governantes de Miguel Albuquerque e de Alberto João Jardim]or “useless works (…), useless expenses, waste without any justification, works without any useas José Manuel Rodrigues, then leader of the CDS and current president of the Regional Legislative Assembly, called them in 2011, months before that year’s regional elections.

Opposition party accounts, especially PS, IL and PCP, are easy to do: more than 470 million in “invented works” of the past [por serem desnecessárias]150 million for the extension of the jetty da Pontinha – which Pedro Calado, mayor of Funchal and former vice president of the regional government, says is “important” to protect Funchal from “tsunamis”, but that the state has not included in the PRR because it does not ” important” – , 30 million for a cable car in the middle of the protected area at Curral das Freiras and 240 million “injected by Miguel Albuquerque into bankrupt development companies”.

“Millions and millions wasted on megalomaniacal, useless works. But there are many more. And this is not a thing of the past. It’s a matter of the present. It is a case for which Miguel Albuquerque is responsible and which continues in a wasteful logic. Cement and concrete proliferate instead of focusing on housing and health”, says Sérgio Goncalves, leader of PS Madeira.

Élvio Sousa, leader of the JPP parliamentary group, believes that the “fabricated works” that “reflect the 6 billion euros in the region’s colossal debt, one billion of which was scandalously hidden from inspection and audit institutions” are still today they weigh on “the high cost of living, the 22% sales tax, and the IRS tables taxing the middle class.”

In short, he says, the “invented works” were for the PSD “a kind of child benefit, to support the clientele in the manger of the regional budget versus community funds”.

Miguel Albuquerque says in statements to DN that the debt is not “suffocating” and that “there is currently no condition limiting it”, not least because he hopes “a percentage of debt to GDP will be around reach 90″. %”.

For Ricardo Lume, deputy of the PCP, “the decisive question is to defeat this regime, to break definitively with gardening, with or without a garden. It is to prevent the expansion of governance dictated by a new clientele and aimed at ensuring the exploitation and impoverishment that have been carried out in this region over the past 50 years.”.

Even because, he explains, what exists is “more of the same” and “not satisfied with the previous waste of more than 45 million euros [o negócio das algas no Porto Santo]”, Miguel Albuquerque’s “renovadinhos want to continue plundering the state treasury (…)”. “the carousel of the theft of public funds to satisfy old and current clientelism”.

“In Madeira, work is done to get done. Even the things that are necessary do not come from studies (…). They know everything, while they know nothing at all. It is “chico cleverness” at the service of “pato bravismo “, says Nuno Morna, leader of the Madeiran IL. And with that, in summary, “a veritable food pyramid is fed, where at the top live the “predators” created by the regime, who suck everything up. At the bottom, the ordinary Madeiran, with wages around the minimum, with no future prospects for themselves and their children “. Or, as ‘Alberto João said when he spoke of a ‘mafia in the good sense””, recalls.

Miguel Castro, from Chega, talks about works with “at least a questionable purpose” and others with “absolutely no use” and “some are even ghost works”.

The CDS, the “useless works” and electoral insignificance

In 2011, heading into the October regional elections, which Jardim would win with an absolute majority [“mas os gajos em 2012 querem eleições para me porem na rua, para me afastar. A certa altura eu tinha mais adversários dentro do partido do que na rua (…) o problema era aqueles sacanas lá dentro do partido”, recordou recentemente, no DN, o ex-líder do governo Regional]the CDS, then led by José Manuel Rodrigues, the current President of the Regional Legislative Assembly, in his “Roteiro” through Madeira called them “useless works” and “severely” criticized Alberto João Jardim’s policies that earned “condemnation” for “incompetence” and for the “appalling” way they “managed public funds in the region in recent years””.

The PS did exactly the same thing last week: parliamentary days devoted to “invented works” following the statements of Sérgio Marques and Miguel Sousa to the DNwhich caused the opening of a commission of inquiry.

“Useless expenses, waste without any justification, work without any use”said Jose Manuel Rodrigues 12 years ago.

Miguel Sousa, in statements to the DNin the report The “guys” who plotted Jardim, the millions of works “invented” and the rulers “removed” by businessmen, published on January 15 and which had the government’s economic coordination from 1988 to 1992, calls them “invented works”. From 2000″fthey did everything that was conceivable and unthinkable, the necessary and the unnecessary, which will never be necessary, which was never finished and will never be finished, it was a waste of financial resources that we did not have (…). Nobody made calculations, everybody authorized everything, nobody was against it (…). And that was it, Madeira went bankrupt. And we still have that debt.”.

Sérgio Marques, former deputy in the Legislative Assembly (1984 to 1999), MEP (1999 to 2009) and regional secretary, between 2015 and 2017, in Miguel Albuquerque’s first government, and now also a former deputy in the national parliament , also refers in this report to “a déjà vu. And at some point works began to be invented, there was a desire to continue in the same government plan, the same line. Unnecessary works, that logic of development companies, all those idiotic investments that development companies have made”.

José Manuel Rodrigues made it clear in 2011, for the avoidance of doubt, that “here the CDS has always been against the PSD and Sunday’s result shows that people knew how to differentiate and bet on the CDS as an alternativeand that the “guilt created by the PSD government” had an obvious reading: “Jardim was the pioneer and gravedigger of autonomy”.

Months later, in parliament in Lisbon, in response to a PCP deputy, in the aftermath of the bad weather on February 20, 2010, he was even sharper and questioned”the adopted model of economic development, based mainly on public works, on government investments, on many works that are useless and represent nothing more than government expenditures”. And he did not shy away from provocation: “What has been adopted in Madeira for 30 years should even have the support of the PCP, because it is a clear state model”.

Years passed, but the opinion remained. In 2018, about a year away from the 2019 regionals, Rui Barreto was already leader of the CDS, José Manuel Rodrigues did not lose focus: “These are the results of social democratic policies, and if anyone has responsibilities, it is only and only the PSD that has governed Madeira for 42 years (…), this government maintains the fiscal choke on those who invest, work and wealth production in our country (…), a heavy tax burden that languishes investment, competitiveness and economic growth (…). Little or nothing has changed (…). This is a conformist government, without courage, without daring and without ambition to carry out the necessary reforms for the present and the future of the Region”.

And just like in 2011, in 2018 “useless works” returned to the CDS discourse: “After a period of stagnation [Miguel Albuquerque] seems to want to go back to the politics of concrete and useless works, to see if they get some inaugurations and votes”.

In 2019, half a year before the elections, Rui Barreto joined the criticism: “PSD shows signs of disorientation and lack of attachment to reality. He no longer understands what the main priorities are, and one of them, the most important, is health. It is necessary to invest in health and give people safety and dignity”.

Months later, two days after the regional elections, he was clear when he declared that “for the first time since democracy was inaugurated in Madeira, we are at a unique moment to end absolute power” – where the CDS criticized so much for 43 years – , to end with the “disappointment” Miguel Albuquerque, whose administration was heavily attacked, and to avoid “constructions” in the region.

It was half a gimmick. And now almost nothing at all. The latest known polls place Rui Barreto’s CDS, if not in a coalition, at its lowest level ever. Translation one: reduced to electoral insignificance. Translation two: not even choosing a substitute.

The bitter taste? If the centrist “left wing” in line with José Manuel Rodrigues – who gave the CDS its “best results ever” – had stopped Rui Barreto’s “right wing”, the CDS would not be “on the verge of extinction” in Madeira and would not have achieved the “fourth worst result since 1976. Only 8 thousand people voted for usIn fact, there were a little more: 8246 votes.

The quoted sentences, from a source of Madeira’s centrist structure, reveal a growing discomfort with the “bear hug” that “shuts up” the CDS and can “open doors” for Chega. By enough? “Yes, it is good not to forget the problems the current leader had with those transfers from a financier of Chega to his bank account and four other members of the party. Richard Vieira [antigo líder do CDS Madeira] I even said on a radio program here that Rui, in order to avoid the party financing law, got his hands dirty with that tool”.

Ricardo Vieira, in the “Debate of the week”, program of the TSF Madeirastill said to be”curious that the president of the government came to give political confidence to a secretary appointed by the CDS. And then that same secretary, after a political committee of the CDS, comes and says that he has the political confidence of the president of the government who is from another party”. And he ended the sentence like this: “A lot happens in this region”.