By: CHRIS GRAEME
LISBON CÂMARA has succeeded in paying off half of its outstanding debts to key suppliers. According to Câmara President António Costa, sound financial housekeeping in the first year of his mandate has paid off 180 million euros of a 360 million euro debt.
The city’s mayor was speaking at a dinner to mark the first anniversary since he took the helm at the municipal authority, which was attended by Prime Minister José Sócrates.
The total debt would, according to António Costa, be enough to build 60 new schools or 10 Marquês de Pombal tunnels.
The Câmara, which has failed to get backing from the Tribunal de Contas (TC), a government financial exchequer audit body, to take out loans to pay off creditors, was forced to reduce its budget spending to the tune of 30 per cent to control municipal spending.
“We’ve managed to take the city out of intensive care but Lisbon is still in a critical condition,” he said, adding that the main goal of his mandate was to “get the Câmara working.”
However, the true extent of Lisbon Câmara’s total debt is estimated to stand at over a billion euros.
“Lisbon will certainly move forward, it might take one, two, three or six years to get it fully back on its feet, but we’ll do it,” he promised.
José Socrates, who embraced António Costa warmly after his speech, highlighted the importance of the mayor’s role in overhauling the Câmara governmental machinery.
Indifference
“A year ago we were faced with a Câmara that was ungovernable, one without political credibility, fundamentally marked by negligence, carelessness and indifference,” he said in his capacity as Secretary-General of the PS party Partido Socialista.
The Programme ‘Simplifying Lisbon Administration’ (SIMPLIS) was officially presented on July 7 at its headquarters in Lisbon’s Campo Grande.
The programme aims to modernise, simplify and make the Camarâ’s services, administration and processes less bureaucratic, rationalising departments, cutting costs and introducing strictness and rigor into the way the Câmara is run.
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