The president of the Liberal Initiative (IL), Rui Rocha, this Thursday accused the government of wanting to “destroy local housing” and send the message to the Portuguese that it is better to “be quiet” and not to enter the country. to invest.
“What is happening (…) is in fact an attempt to destroy local accommodation”emphasized Rui Rocha at a conference on housing in Lisbon, where he focused on the “More housing” program presented by the government.
The IL leader stressed that the possibility of condominiums deciding that it is not possible to have local housing in buildings, the launch of an extraordinary contribution to this activity and the restrictions on the transferability of permits means that the government intends ” to end up with local housing”. “.
“If all this isn’t enough, what’s left? [de alojamento local]there will be few of them in a few years, there is a sentence that is a reassessment that no one knows by what criteria, that will decide who can finally end up with local accommodation”, orphan.
Rui Rocha emphasized that local property owners are “the vast majority of small investors, who invested their resources and left others in debt”.
“Local accommodation was responsible for many people thinking about emigrating and staying in Portugal and it was also responsible for many emigrated people being able to return”he added, adding that these people “did not expect benefits, did not expect subsidies and did not expect to be paid at the expense of the state”.
“The message that is given about local accommodation, but which is understandable for all other economic activities in Portugal, is that in Portugal it is better to be quiet, because the government, being incompetent, can decide at any time that you activity ceases to be an acceptable economic activity and liquidates your economic activity”he added.
Without intending to “enter into conspiracy theories about whether the intention is to favor one particular activity to the detriment of another”, Rui Rocha stressed that “if the aim is to free up housing”, this measures “should be extended to other types of economic activities”.
“If we see that this is not happening and that it is only aimed at local accommodation, the only interpretation we can make is that there is in fact a targeted intent”to maintain.
As for the rent freeze, another measure of the “More Housing” package, Rui Rocha stressed that this is “particularly burdensome” because it results in “a shortage of supply and a decrease in the quality of the offer”.
“Obviously, there is nothing that can be against this. We still have the case of Spain (…) with the rent freeze with a maximum update of 2% and we now have 17% less supply in the market and prices increase by 9%”illustrated.
The IL leader also spoke of forced or compulsory leasing and noted that the government, by “Realizing that the lake housing package was very poorly received in Portugal, it generally made a sort of retreat”.
“Realizing that insisting on being the moral author, but also the material author of forced leases, would obviously have a political cost and so the government, not listening to the municipalities in the elaboration of the program, decided to accountability for any attempt to promote situations of forced rental”he underlined.
Rui Rocha also accused António Costa’s government of having, in terms of housing, presented “more packages than houses built”, referring to the fact that the announced measures are the result of “a series of inefficiencies, incompetencies and incapacities of the government itself”.
The Liberal also assured that if the IL “has the capacity to influence power”, not alone “it will help reverse these measures, but it will help ensure that the Portuguese who work, invest and take risks have a much brighter future than they have now”.
Source: DN
