The mayor of Viseu, Fernando Ruas, warned this Saturday about the “difficult period” municipalities are going through due to the current inflation and emphasized the “importance of decentralization”, in debate at the national assembly of mayors.
“We are again at a difficult time in our municipal administration. The inflation that plagues us every day has an impact on the good management that we want to make of public money, the decentralization of powers makes it necessary that we increasingly unite in defense of everyone’s interests”warned Fernando Ruas.
During the opening session of the National Assembly of Mayors, in Viseu, the host president and former president of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities (ANMP), between 2002 and 2014, defended a “strong and united” body.
“A strong national association of municipalities will have the capacity to do more and better for the citizens of Portugal. The ANMP is one of the greatest achievements of democratic power, so it is imperative to keep it strong and united. keep,” he said. appealed.
Fernando Ruas emphasized the “importance of municipalities” as the “real guarantees of wealth distribution and development across the country” and assumed that it was the municipalities “that democratized public investment”.
“How many parts of the national territory would not have been fully exposed without the municipal investment. Therefore, the municipalities are the effective guarantee for a fairer, more balanced, more solidarity-based and harmonious country,” he defended.
In this regard, he emphasized the topics under discussion today: “local management and financing” and “decentralization of powers”, a subject on which he devoted more time in his speech, recalling statements made by him at previous meetings and of the President of the Republic.
The mayor of Viseu defended that “the principle of subsidiarity should strengthen the effective sharing of power between the state and the intermunicipal companies [CIM] and municipalities” in the country.
“We have no doubt that the governance of common interests is better achieved when we bring the administration closer to the governed. (…) We will not be able to accept that we do more without depleting the necessary resources, and we will also not be able to accept mere transfers from cost centers with recognized financing and operating deficits,” he said.
This is because, he added, “the local mayors cannot re-solve the structural problems that the central state needs to solve” and so he said he believes the meeting today will lead to “some conclusions” about decentralization.
“They can take money from us, they may want to interfere in personal management. But in our dignity, no. The Republic, and we, the mayors, united and cohesive, will not allow it,” warned Fernando Ruas.
Source: DN
