PSD President Rui Rio said this Saturday in Coimbra that the Government’s action to control the Covid-19 pandemic “went wrong” in the last few weeks in the Lisbon and Tagus Valley region.
“Looking at the results of government action in Lisbon and the Tagus Valley over the past two, three weeks, of course, there are objective data that went wrong”, stressed the social-democratic leader, at the end of the meeting of the party’s National Strategic Council.
To the journalists, the leader considered it natural that there are criticisms of the Government “in the form of the retarder that was the public response to the evolution of the pandemic in Lisbon and Vale do Tejo”, when there was already experience dealing with the pandemic.
Asked to say what he would do differently if he led the Government, Rui Rio did not want to mention measures, but said that he would have to “introduce the dynamics that the Directorate-General for Health (DGS) needs and also be more attentive to respond faster ”.
“I knew what I had to do from the point of view of the attitude towards the problem and the services”, stressed the social-democratic leader, adding that the DGS “is not responding properly”.
Questioned by journalists, the president of the PSD also said that he “understands the collaboration” of the President of the Republic with the Government, although since the beginning of his term he has not “always been in agreement” with Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa.
As for the Supplementary Budget presented by the Government, Rui Rio said that, after the PSD generally missed the document, “probably”, it will also be approved “in the final global vote for reasons of national interest”.
“It was very serious if the Supplementary Budget failed and the country ran out of financial means to respond to what is necessary”, said the leader.
The PSD prefers, however, to let the document pass by to “castrate the country, which was without financial means”, even if it “has some things” that the PSD could “do differently” if it were in the Government, added Rui Rio.
“Only in a limit situation would we do such a thing”, he stressed.
Today’s meeting of the National Strategic Council was the first held under the leadership of Joaquim Miranda Sarmento, the PSD’s ‘strong man’ for public finances.
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