The President of the Government said this Friday that a public investment of some 700 million euros in social equipment is under way and has defended the path chosen by the Government in the execution of the Recovery and Resilience Plan (PRR).
António Costa was speaking in Almada at the end of a dissemination session on projects for the requalification and expansion of the network of social facilities and social responses within the scope of the PRR and the PARES 3.0 programme.
In his speech, the President of the Government considered that we are currently facing “the largest investment ever made in social facilitiesand highlighted the performance of its Minister of Labour, Solidarity and Social Security, Ana Mendes Godinho.
A praise that was extended by the fact that this Friday only the lowest pensions were paid retroactively and for having started the parliamentary discussion of the Agenda for Decent Work.
In the case of the field of social solidarity, according to the leader of the executive, in the new program “more than 400 entities from all over the country are involved” in projects of new equipment, or recovery of equipment, in areas such as nurseries, places for older people or people with disabilities.
There are 700 million euros of total public investment, in addition to the investment that is also mobilized by the solidarity and social sector. In this first series of contracts that were delivered here in the PARES area only in matters of older people, for a public investment of 234 million euros, we have a total investment of 394 million euros mobilized by the whole of civil society for the whole of the social and solidarity sector”, he stressed.
In this context, the President of the Government considered that the total investment of 700 million euros “will have a high multiplier effect” and gave a political response to the critical sectors in the way the national PRR was conceived.
“When it is said that a large part of the PRR goes to the State, it is a profoundly mistaken idea. When the money was transferred to the Social Security Institute, it was not to pay employee salaries or to buy equipment, it was not to spend on the activity of the institute for their own consumption, ”he said.
According to the leader of the executive, the objective of the financial transfer was for the Social Security Institute to organize this national competition and mobilize 400 institutions.
“Today, more than 100 are here in Almada with contracts already consolidated, delivered and, from now on, they will be able to start using these resources provided by PARES or the PRR. The institutions will not receive this money for themselves, but for invest in more equipment places and in the reclassification of these placesyes”, he reinforced.
António Costa also wanted to highlight that this program has “58,000 specific people who will benefit from it, from children, people with disabilities and the elderly.”
“This money is not for the State, it is not even for mercedes, nor for mutual societies, nor for Private Institutions of Social Solidarity (IPSS). This money is really for the people to whom grants, mutuals and IPSS provide an invaluable service to the country”, he added.
Source: Observadora
