SDP leader Luis Montenegro this Thursday accused the government of “trying to shirk responsibility” for everything that “goes wrong” in the context of preventing and extinguishing fires that have broken out in the country.
“I have to admit, I am a little apprehensive when the government tries to abdicate responsibility for everything that goes wrong,” Luis Montenegro told reporters on the sidelines of the Summer Meeting of the Portuguese Communities in Ourem.
The SDP president felt that “things are not going very well” and the SDP “has a lot of responsibility and respect for those on the ground”.
“But this does not exempt us from our role as observers of government actions. And indeed, the government could and should have done a lot so far and has not done it, and I regret that now they want to arrange some kind of maneuvers. to distract us from what is essential,” the SDP president added.
According to Luis Montenegro, it is impossible “every year to wait for the end of the fires to make assessments, and then, next year”, the fires are still going on, especially after the tragedy of 2017: “It was five years ago, and it is expected that, five years later, the country has a different response capacity than it was,” he said.
According to Luis Montenegro, one of the issues that has failed over the past few years is “the implementation of the promised forest reform”, as well as “some actions aimed, on the one hand, at prevention, and on the other, to have the means to combat with what is happening, for example, with aviation resources, with what the Government has invested in it.”
The politician also expressed regret that the 81 vehicles that will be handed over to the fire departments “will only arrive at the end of the fire season.”
“There are measures that should be taken only by the executive branch, which are operational and which concern the actions of the government. a dimension that, unfortunately, some are talking about,” he added, insisting that it is the government that can “take responsibility.”
Montenegro acknowledged that weather patterns such as severe drought and heat waves are affecting, as well as “climate change”, but warned that it did not think it was “right” for the government to put “the main focus on masking what went wrong”. .
The executive branch should develop “mechanisms for prevention, whether it be the structural side of the forest reform or the more operational side, in the distribution of funds: aviation assets, combat assets and coordination assets,” he also pointed out.
Luis Montenegro took the opportunity to convey “a word of sorrow and solidarity to the family of the fireman who died yesterday.”
The Social Democrat added: “We always look with great horror at all the images and all the consequences of this disaster that the country is experiencing year after year.”
A firefighter died suddenly while putting out a fire in Caldas da Rainha in the Leiria region.
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
