Applications to the Municipal Emergency Fund? Leiria criticizes complexity

O president of the municipality of Leiria, Gonçalo Lopes, today criticized the “extremely complex” process of applications to the Municipal Emergency Fund (FEM), to repair the damage arising from storms of the beginning of the year.

“ The application process has been extremely complex, all the more so that it was announced in August and it is only now that the form appears, in October, without having been adjusted the application date ", said Gonçalo Lopes, after talking to students of the Department of Geography of the University of Porto in the NEXXT I was going to read about the reconstruction of the county, seriously hit by the depression Kristin almost nine months ago.

According to the mayor, “the form presents a level of complexity that practically paralyzes a large part of the Municipality of Leiria to make the application”.

“ We are talking about thousands of lines, references, occurrences that need to be budgeted and launched,” Lusa said, classifying the process as “extremely bureaucratic”.

On 31 July, the Order was published in Diário da República, which allows municipalities affected by the disaster caused by the storms to apply for a maximum support of 60% of the proven damage through the FEM to recover damaged infrastructure.

The order allows applications for the “funding of the repair, reconstruction and replacement of public infrastructure and equipment affected by exceptional and serious meteorological phenomena occurring in the territories” covered by the disaster declaration.

This support is intended for municipalities, parishes and intermunicipal entities and applications can be submitted by 30 November.

The mayor insisted that, in addition to the short term, there are “difficulties inherent to the complexity” of the process, “like the experience already experienced with the supports” for the reconstruction of houses damaged by bad weather.

Gonçalo Lopes also said that the percentage of support announced “is extremely insufficient for the extent of the damage that the municipality of Leiria and the municipalities affected had”.

For the mayor, the FEM “represents the hope of the resurgence of these territories”, but stressed that “the quality of the application may be compromised” given the bureaucracy and the deadline, and that Leiria is “using artificial intelligence tools” to avoid delays.

“ Once again, the burden, the difficulties, pass to the mayors, to their services ", lamented, recalling that there are municipalities affected with the bad weather that are limited in their regular action, but to which systematically put “bureaucratic workloads”, and defended “more agile procedures, faster, with calendars and periods adjusted to what is the reaction capacity of the chambers”.

In September, the president of the Intermunicipal Community (CIM) of the Region of Leiria, Jorge Vala, considered “manifestly insufficient” the maximum support of 60% for local authorities, concerning the damage caused by storms at the beginning of the year, assuming “the expectation that there may be a proposal in the Assembly of the Republic to strengthen, as there have been in other situations, the FEM to 85% or 100%”.

In the same month, in a letter, the CIM asked the chairman of the parliamentary committee on Economics and Territorial Cohesion to ask for “the attention and commitment” of the Assembly of the Republic in this matter, which “takes particular urgency for the people and for the municipalities” of the Region of Leiria.

The municipalities of Alvaiázere, Ansião, Batalha, Castanheira de Pera, Figueiró dos Vinhos, Leiria, Marinha Grande, Pedrógão Grande, Pombal and Porto de Mós integrate the CIM.

At least 19 people died in Portugal between the end of January and the beginning of March following the passage of the depressions Kristin, Leonardo and Marta, which also made several hundred wounded, displaced and displaced. More than half of the deaths were recorded in recovery work.

The storms, which reached the continental territory for about three weeks, especially in the Central, Lisbon and Vale do Tejo and Alentejo regions, caused the total or partial destruction of thousands of homes, businesses and equipment, the fall of trees and structures, the cutting of energy, water and communications, floods and floods, with losses of more than EUR 5 billion.