Brava: Municipal Assembly approves budget of 377 thousand contos for 2024

When justifying the favorable vote of the Movement for Democracy (MpD, in power), António Gomes highlighted that anyone who wants to see Ilha Brava on the right path cannot fail to approve the 2024 budget.

“From what I can see, this budget will be another gain and achievement for the municipality in this current year” he highlighted.

As assured by the same source, the city council will continue to work to help the population, in terms of construction, sport and development of the municipality.

For his part, the leader of the municipal bench of the Cape Verde African Independence Party (PAICV, opposition), João Coelho, said that his bench voted against all budget plans, because the plan is not translating what is the expression of the brave people.

“The plan that was presented is very attached to cosmetic constructions and the sectors that we thought would end up lifting this municipality were not included in the plan nor were they taken into consideration. It is a budget dependent only on the interests of the MpD bench, which still has plans to take out a loan, which we consider to be exaggerated, since the value is three times above the Municipal Financing Fund, and this is yet another maneuver to get votes in the elections,” he said.

João Coelho also considered that the municipal budget is “damaging” in principle, because the council is not making the coercive discount from the INPS (National Social Security Institute), and this is putting the safety of employees at risk.

“To make a payment and restore legality, the chamber had to resort to a loan and this is very serious. We don’t want this to happen to employees who get up to work every day,” he stressed.

The president of Brava City Council, Francisco Tavares, gave a positive assessment of this session, highlighting that it is an “ambitious” budget that has a range of projects in the area of sport and education.

“It is a budget with a strong social focus and we also foresee a significant intervention, mainly in the program for each house, a bathroom and a safe roof, but also in the area of better equipping the city council to better serve its citizens”, he highlighted.

In terms of investment, he considered it to be a very large range of projects, which implies a bank loan worth 50 thousand contos.

“The value is within the limit of the city council's debt capacity, since last year's budget and we will still have a financing fund in the order of 900 contos per month, which allows us to cover bank charges and also implement the increase in minimum wage of 15 thousand escudos”, he stressed.

Francisco Tavares considered it to be a very “viable” budget in this election year, which implies that the city council team stays out of the city council executive for at least two months, one month before and one month after taking office.

“We will do everything so that the works that are in the plan are properly planned for the management team that remains in office and that the project is materialized”, he concluded.