Porto House calls for compensation for the decentralisation deficit

A Câmara do Porto wants to be reimbursed, through the State Budget (OE) for 2027, the expenses it has with the decentralization in the area of education and social action, and wants help in the construction of new health centers.

In statements to journalists in the margins of the meeting of the municipal executive, which took place behind closed doors today, PS councilman Manuel Pizarro denounced that the OE proposal does not “predict sufficient money for reimbursement”.

“ We have already demonstrated that there is an imbalance and that the House of Porto is spending more than it receives from the State. We were told at the time that this would be corrected in the Budget for 2027 and it does not foresee enough to pay the expenditure of 2027, let alone repay the House for what is in deficit in the years 2024, 2025 and 2026,” he said.

The opposition councilor also recalled that there are ongoing construction of new health centers in the city, at the expense of the municipality, and that the OE also does not provide sufficient funds for this, accusing the government of “assuming to the side”.

“The government announces in the media that it will repay the municipalities, but the truth is that if this payment depends on the State Budget for 2027 the government will behave with the City of Porto with a deadbeat, because it will not pay what is foreseen,” said Manuel Pizarro, who indicated that the subject will be discussed again by the municipal executive within a week.

On the other hand, the mayor, Pedro Duarte (PSD/CDS-PP/IL), recalled that the decentralization of competences was a “very badly sized process” by the former government of the PS and that it eventually became a “problem that has been dragging on for some years”.

“ We are trying to raise awareness of the government, we will continue, to try to rectify, in essence, an old mistake (...). We'll try and get all the local power. It is not an exclusive problem of Porto, all the municipalities of the country have this concrete problem ", he considered.

On the question of the new health centers, Pedro Duarte explained that this is a problem that stems from the decentralization process, because the projects were out of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR) “by a delay that had to do with the way the process took place” and that prevented the municipality from submitting the applications in time.

“ We are trying to ensure that for those funds that could not be implemented under the PRR, there is funding from the OE in order to complete the health centres,” he said, ensuring that, even without support, they will continue with the works because the city “ really needs” these new equipment.

The municipality recently completed the rehabilitation of two health centers – the Health Center of Foz and the Health Center of the Formoso Valley –, which managed to finance the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR), but there are three more projects that are being funded by the municipality itself: the Garcia Health Center of Orta/Man do Leme, the Carvalhido Health Center and the Cerco Health Center.

The municipality had already identified, in 2024, more health centers whose rehabilitation could benefit from the RRP, but dropped some applications due to tight deadlines and lack of information about these buildings provided by the time of the transfer of competencies in the health area.

These interventions by the House of Porto amount to EUR 10.6 million.

By the end of May, the executive approved an PS motion urging the government to cover the deficit of around 12 million euros of the decentralisation process, especially social action and education.

This was a proposal from the PS that “reclaims that the government pay the accumulated deficits related to the financing of the transfer of competences between the central state and the municipality in the areas of education, social action and health in the years 2023, 2024 and 2025”.