Africa-Press – Cape verde. The Praia Municipal Assembly met this Monday, on the first day of the seventh ordinary session with the purpose of debating and approving the 2023 Amending Budget and the Activity and Budget Plan for the economic year 2024.
During his intervention, the mayor, Francisco Carvalho, explained that this new budget is based on including a bond loan in the amount of two million contos that will be taken out from the Cape Verde Stock Exchange (BVC) to implement the “ dreams and projects” of residents.
Another reason, he said, is related to the stoppage of works in the Sucupira market, justifying that the municipality received two proposals, one relatively below the value of the cost of the works and another proposal much higher.
“Sucupira is, without more or less, the most dynamic area of Cape Verde’s economy. We have a lot of inferiority complex in the informal sector, which is why we underestimate and do not give due value to the market. But the city council values it, that’s why we made this big bet, we ran a competition, but when we analyzed it was expected to cost 40 thousand contos and in the end it was 98 thousand contos”, he explained.
According to Francisco Carvalho, this budget indicates that the city council has been governing with “ethical values and principles” based on transparency and not, he highlighted, “in an attempt to deceive or create narratives” for the population.
The leader of the Movement for Democracy (MpD) bench, João Cabral, said that the amending budget, which includes a revenue of 2,723,333,623 escudos, of which 138,999,000 escudos, corresponds to the revenues from the fund of the Public Supply Service of the Municipality of Praia (Sepamp), reached the Municipal Assembly without approval from the council.
João Cardoso questioned the lack of information in the instrument presented in just three articles, ensuring that the previous budget for 2023 approved by the majority contained “32 articles”.
“This budget reaches the municipal assembly for approval without approval by the city council despite the president having the majority due to the request to suspend the order of councilor Samilo Moreira. Therefore, this budget arrives illegally, violating article 92 of law 134/IV/95 and article 46 of the financial regime for local authorities law no79/VI/2005 of 5 September”, he contested.
For his part, the leader of the African Party for the Independence of Cape Verde (PAICV), Aquiles Barbosa, clarified that article 46 establishes the amending budget specifically, he stressed, to overcome the problems of allocation of funds and establish priorities in governance .
“The budget had a reduction in expected revenue funds because, as we know, the world is going through a crisis with an increase in goods and services, it was necessary to welcome families. Some revenues that were supposed to come in did not come in and one of these revenues is the transfer of the Tourism Fund, the Environment Fund and the PRRA [Rehabilitation, Requalification and Accessibility Program] budget itself”, he highlighted, adding that for the year 2024 will have a new continuity budget focusing on the investment portfolio and the municipality’s most pressing issues.
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