Fires: Government and parties propose measures to alleviate bureaucracy in supporting victims
The Minister of Territorial Cohesion presented, this Friday, in parliament a proposal to ease bureaucracy in supporting victims of the September firesnotably the exemption from prior approval from the Court of Auditors for the reconstruction of housing by municipalities.
In addition to the Government’s proposal, the parliament also debated complementary measures in support of populations affected by the fires of September this year, presented by PAN, Chega, PCP, BE and Livre.
The deputy minister of Territorial Cohesion, Castro Almeida, highlighted that the Government proposals aim to speed up the arrival of aid to the victims, following decisions taken by the Council of Ministers, taking into account that the Executive decided to immediately make 100 million euros available for this purpose.
“Two days later the money was in the account of the Regional Coordination and Development Commissions (CCDR), which can begin processing payments. Today the first financial support will begin to be delivered to farmers injured by these fires,” said Castro Almeida .
The minister also said thatand “a process of surveying the damage and assessing it” takes place.
“As is already known, in the case of houses, our idea is that the funds are delivered either to the owners of the houses, if they want to be responsible for recovering them, or to the Municipal Councils, if they want to do this work”, he said .
Therefore, the Government came to ask the Assembly of the Republic to approve streamlining measures that fall within the sphere of parliament’s competence.
These involve waiving prior approval from the Court of Auditors for public contracts related to the State’s intervention in these works, namely “contracts for the work that the Municipal Councils will carry out with contractors to restore the houses as quickly as possible”.
Another of the measures defended, this Friday, is exempt from the mandatory authorization of the members of the Government responsible for the conclusion of contracts between the CCDR and the Municipal Chambers responsible for supporting the reconstruction of houses.
The Government’s proposal also intends to exempt donations of animal feed that several companies made following the fires from paying VAT.
“These are emergency situations that also justify emergency measures”, highlighted Castro Almeida.
The minister also highlighted that the Executive was “on the ground” coordinating with mayors the measures to be adopted in areas such as health, social inclusion, housing, economic recovery, agriculture and recovery of burned infrastructure, and that all mayors, from all parties , demonstrated “an excellent willingness to collaborate with the Government.
