Alleged Government-Chega agreement: PCP considers that controversy over meetings serves to divert attention from the State budget
The secretary general of the PCP today considered that the alleged “secret meetings” within the scope of the Budget negotiations are a “diversionary maneuver” to divert attention from the budget proposal, asking that people talk about its “concrete contents”.
Speaking to journalists on the sidelines of a demonstration in Lisbon to demand peace in the Middle East and an independent Palestine, Paulo Raimundo was asked about the exchange of mutual accusations between the Prime Minister, Luís Montenegro, and the president of Chega, André Ventura, regarding alleged secret meetings and proposed agreements in State Budget negotiations.
In response, Paulo Raimundo said that “there are too many people responsible” for the content of the State Budget who, now that the proposal has been delivered, “want to talk about everything except its content”.
“With us, no. They don’t count on us to push their belly forward, to fuel diversionary maneuvers. With us it’s to talk about concrete content, people’s lives, the policy that is missing and the content that this budget doesn’t give an answer,” he said.
The secretary general of the PCP said that “there are a handful of people satisfied with this State Budget”, referring to economic groups, and, then, “there are those who are under the jurisdiction of economic groups who want to talk about everything except the content”.
“While accusations are being exchanged and there is talk of supposedly secret meetings, we are not talking about the 1,800 million euros in tax benefits, the 1,500 million euros in public-private partnerships, the eight billion that leave the National Health Service for hand over to private groups that make the disease a business, there is no talk about the lack of responses to housing, there is no talk about the problem, in practice, of containing salaries”, he criticized, highlighting that his party will not fuel the controversy over the “meetings more secret or less secret”.
Paulo Raimundo also said it was surprising that, until October 9th, the day before the budget proposal was delivered to parliament, there was talk about “a budget that didn’t exist” and, now that the proposal has been delivered, we chose to talk about something else.
“Until the 9th, there was no Budget and there was talk about the IRC, the IRS Jovem. It was the talk of the Budget. From the 10th, there is a budget and what is extraordinary is that if we continue to talk about everything, except the content of the Budget”, he said, arguing that the budget proposal presented by the Government is not what the country needs.
“We need more salaries, more pensions, more professionals in the NHS, more answers for children in daycare and pre-school, we need a response to the housing problem. None of this this Budget responds to, and that is why we are talking about everything except the Budget”, he said.
Asked about the speech made today by the new Attorney General of the Republic, during his inauguration ceremony, Paulo Raimundo said that the PCP follows “some of the warnings and needs” that Amadeu Guerra put forward.
The secretary general of the PCP said, in particular, that he hoped that it would be possible to give “more resources, more conditions, more employees” to the Public Ministry, as claimed by Amadeu Guerra, but added that, also on this point, the proposed Budget of the State does not provide any response.
Paulo Raimundo also took the opportunity to talk about the topic of corruption – one of the topics that was also addressed by Amadeu Guerra in his speech today – to highlight that the State Budget proposal “envisages more privatizations, namely that of TAP”.
“Now, if there is one thing we know, by A plus B, it is that privatizations – TAP, in 2015, ANA, but also the most recent ones that we know of – all of them are, in themselves, centers of high corruption, of high negotiation. Investigate this until the end”, he said.
