Ponte da Barca: 2023 accounts close with an increase in revenue and expense execution | Newspaper C

The Ponte da Barca Chamber (PSD) approved, with the PS voting against, the 2023 accounts, highlighting an increase in revenue execution, around 70%, and expenditure, 69.5%, compared to the previous year, announced that municipality.

In a statement sent to the newsrooms, the municipality of the district of Viana do Castelo said that in the “execution of revenue the value was greater than 16.1 million euros and, in terms of expenditure, around 15.9 million euros”.

The “net result achieved in 2023 is positive, standing at 438,556.51 euros, representing an increase compared to the result achieved in 2022”, the value of which is specified.

In 2023, the year to which the accounts approved by the municipal executive relate, the Ponte da Barca City Council Budget presented a value of 22,231,965.00 euros, more than 450 thousand euros than in 2022.

For the PSD majority in the Ponte da Barca Chamber, “the results achieved in 2023 are proof of the municipal dynamism and the investment that is being made throughout the territory, in which several interventions stand out such as the Rodo business park, the canteens of the Ponte da Barca school cluster, the expansion of the water supply and sanitation network, requalification and paving of roads, among other investments”.

“Since 2017, the municipal executive of Ponte da Barca has not resorted to budget reviews at the end of the year to increase budget execution, so the values ​​achieved in 2023 are real values”, maintains the municipality.

“The results obtained reinforce our motivation to continue putting into practice, every day, a policy of honesty, transparency and rigor, as well as continuing to invest in promoting sustainable growth, honoring the expectations of our residents when they chose Ponte da Barca to live, work and invest”, says the president of the Chamber, Augusto Marinhomentioned in the note.

For PS councilors, the 2023 accounts “demonstrate that there is no growth and that financial consolidation is a fable”.

“Instead of fantasy, more rigor and transparency are required”, they maintain in the declaration of vote presented at a council meeting.

In the document, to which Lusa had access today, the PS states that “the municipality’s known debt exceeds 8.5 million euros and, in the absence of competence and prudent management of public money, which are wasted with hiring and expenses current practices, the use of bank loans with repayments over 15 and 20 years is becoming a habit – a lifeline”.

Contacted by Lusa, Augusto Marinho he explained that the total liabilities are around 8.4 million euros, lower than in 2017, when the PSD arrived at Ponte da Barca City Council, the value was more than 8.8 million euros”.

“The weight of liabilities in relation to total revenue is 52%, compared to 70% in 2017”, he highlighted.

In 2023, the value of bank loans was around 4.5 million euros, compared to 5.5 million euros in 2017.”

“These are the data from the management accounts so that everyone can draw their own conclusions. I am not making any further statements on the matter”, stated the social democrat.

For the PS, it considers that “the accounts presented prove, once again, that the PSD executive’s budgets are always inflated and, instead of translating the financial reality, they are a mere political propaganda mechanism that year after year seeks to continue to feed expectations that, once again in 2023, did not materialize”.

For the PS councilors, the “document, with 176 pages, is part of a report that is limited to phrases, largely unrealistic and distorted from the reality of Barquão, and an accounting where numbers are entered under general headings”.

The 2023 accounts will be assessed and voted on, on Tuesday, at the Municipal Assembly.

Lusa