The mayor of Manteigas, Flávio Massano, on Monday called it “an injustice” that the municipality was not included in the allocation of support to municipalities affected by the floods of late 2022 and early 2023.
The mayor has already made his dissatisfaction known to the Minister for Territorial Cohesion and now hopes that the correction can be made this month, he announced on Monday during the municipal executive meeting, broadcast on a digital platform.
The mayor recalled the damage to infrastructure and equipment, especially in the parishes of Sameiro and Vale de Amoreira, caused by the rains and floods after the fires of August 2022, for which the municipality received no support despite insisting on it from the government.
At the meeting, Flávio Massano said that a new, more accurate survey had been carried out and that the reconstruction costs would be 1.6 million euros.
“We now have projects, estimates and works awarded for which we have no money. That’s the figure I told the minister,” he said.
The mayor of Manteigas said that the government had already been asked for support to deal with the damage, but “both the government and the CCDR [Central Region Coordination Commission] have been delaying their response”.
“We insisted and we were surprised that in January the government allocated money for similar phenomena” that had occurred almost everywhere in the country.
Now, he admitted that he was surprised that the order published in the Official Gazette included several municipalities in the region that “didn’t suffer as much damage” as Manteigas and that the municipality was not included.
“Nothing against it, but we want our share,” he argued.
The mayor considered it “an injustice and unequal treatment for identical situations”.
“I couldn’t tolerate the municipality being disadvantaged in this situation. I’m waiting for an answer saying that the government will help,” he said.
In June, the municipality of Manteigas approved a motion calling on the government to provide support to deal with the damage caused by the floods after the 2022 fire in various parts of the municipality, in the district of Guarda.
In August, the government announced that it would contribute 48.4 million euros to the replacement, in 92 municipalities, of infrastructure and equipment destroyed by the floods of December 2022 and January 2023.
The joint order from the ministries of Finance and Territorial Cohesion, published in the Diário da República on August 10, provides support for several municipalities in the region, such as Almeida, Belmonte, Gouveia, Guarda, Meda and Seia.
The Ministry for Territorial Cohesion said that, in total, applications from 92 municipalities had been validated.
Several districts on the continent were affected by heavy rains between the end of 2022 and the beginning of this year, with major flooding, damage to roads, businesses and homes, and dozens of people left homeless.
