Paulo Raimundo says that “the mussel is the one who doesn’t care” about the “war” over public accounts – Politics

The secretary general of the PCP summarized this Thursday the “war” over public accounts with the Government “finding justifications for not fulfilling what it promised” and the PS “trying to apologize for the wrong choices” at budgetary level.

“We do not need deputies in the Assembly of the Republic who form majorities so that, after the Government takes office, they come to justify why they cannot fulfill the promises they are making today. And that is what is happening”, argued the PCP leader , Paulo Raimundo.

Speaking to journalists in Beja, on the sidelines of a visit he made late this afternoon to the Ovibeja agricultural fair, the communist general secretary said that the Government “is finding justifications for not fulfilling what it promised to various sectors or at least to delay as long as possible the proposals he made”.

And, at the same time, “we have the Socialist Party trying to apologize for the wrong choices it made from a budgetary point of view”, he compared.

“In short, this so-called war is that, nothing more, some apologizing for the mistakes they made and others creating the conditions to justify why they won’t fulfill what they promised”, he highlighted.

And, he continued, “in the midst of all this, it’s the mussels, the farmers and agriculture that don’t care.”

This Thursday, the Finance Minister estimated the deficit recorded until the end of the first quarter of this year at around 600 million euros and accused the previous Government of having increased spending after the last legislative elections.

“The budgetary situation is much worse than the previous Government had announced”, declared Joaquim Miranda Sarmento at the end of the Council of Ministers meeting.

The minister indicated that, to the 300 million euros of deficit recorded in the last budget execution summary, it is important to add another 300 million euros as a result of the increase in debts to suppliers.

According to the head of the Finance portfolio, some of the expenditure increases seen were made after the early legislative elections on March 10th.

Miranda Sarmento also added that the current executive is carrying out “an exhaustive survey” of 108 resolutions approved by the Council of Ministers after António Costa’s resignation on November 7th.

“I can already identify three of significant amounts that were promises without budgetary scope: 100 million euros to support farmers to combat drought in the Algarve and Alentejo; 127 million euros for the purchase of vaccines against Covid-19; and 200 million of euros for the recovery of the School Park”, he added.

Also this Thursday, in statements to journalists, following Miranda Sarmento’s statements, former Finance Minister Fernando Medina (PS) refused that Portugal presents a budgetary problem.

And he argued that budget execution reflects changes in withholding tax and extraordinary expenses, remembering that it does not include balances carried over between the State and Social Security.

“The values ​​in public accounting are very easy to explain. Firstly, they result from the true, effective and tax reduction policy that the PS Government registered”, said Fernando Medina.

The former government official also explained that the growth in pension expenditure up to March is being greater this year than last year and pointed out the impact of a series of extraordinary expenses, such as those relating to the tariff deficit, State legal proceedings or the support of 100 million euros for farmers due to the drought.