This morning, during a campaign event for the municipal elections on October 12, Mariana Leitão took a boat ride from Seixal to Cais do Sodré in Lisbon and listened to the complaints of commuters who are frustrated with ongoing delays, schedule changes, and transportation issues affecting those traveling to the capital for work.
“This is not the first time we have come to verify the poor service provided by this public service, which leaves people completely abandoned to their fate,” Mariana Leitão told reporters at the end of the journey.
People “cannot be condemned by their geography or purchasing power, they need to have opportunities, freedom of choice, and live their lives as they see fit,” stated the liberal leader, criticizing what she perceives as poor service affecting those who “live in Seixal and work in Lisbon, often ending up seeing the boats they need being canceled.”
The purchase of electric boats by the public transport company has been criticized by both commuters and the communist-led local government, but for the president of IL, the solution lies in more competition.
“It is essential that these people have access to functioning public services,” but “if the State cannot provide this public service, it must ensure market liberalization so that there is competition to promote the quality of service,” Mariana Leitão argued.
Over the years, the service has “continuously degraded,” compounded by “investments that make no sense, such as in this case buying electric boats.”
“The boats arrived without batteries, and then the batteries had to be purchased,” in a “series of steps taken without any planning or strategy,” she claimed.
“At the end of the day, who suffers? It’s the people, the commuters who need to come from Seixal to Lisbon for work and can’t do it in a timely manner,” Mariana Leitão exclaimed.
All “this is unacceptable, and what we want and have been advocating for a long time is indeed liberalization, to allow for more competition so that people are not dependent solely on a non-functioning, poorly managed service,” she argued.
Alongside IL’s candidate for the city council, Mauro Santos, the liberal leader noted “numerous problems in Seixal,” a communist stronghold, calling for “greater dynamism” in the municipality to create local employment opportunities for residents.
“We want to provide them with these employment opportunities, attract more investments, and develop tourism in the Seixal Bay,” Mariana Leitão stated, expressing concern about the social issues in the municipality, which “has one of the highest school dropout and failure rates in the Lisbon metropolitan area.”
“We are talking about a city council managed for 50 years by the Communist Party, which, as we know, has a stance quite adverse to development, modernity, and innovation,” thus requiring “a structural change in management.”
The goal is to elect a councilor and secure seats in the Municipal Assembly and parishes in the municipality.
All “so that the people of Seixal feel they live in a place that offers them life opportunities, that does not leave individuals abandoned,” Mariana Leitão added.
