The CDU rejected this Wednesday an alleged threat of privatization of the Municipal Urban Transport Services of Coimbra (SMTUC) and considered that internalization would be a “wrong solution”.
“Therefore, we oppose any attempt to fragment and privatize the SMTUC, as well as its transformation into a municipal company,” the coalition of communists and environmentalists said in a statement.
In his opinion, the process of internalization, initiated by the majority in the executive, chaired by José Manuel Silva, “does not result from a search for solutions to the problems detected in the SMTUC, but from the attempt to impose a single and wrong solution, without any glimpse of the political capacity to find alternatives”.
“How is it possible to make a change of this dimension without taking into account the impacts of the possible entry into operation of Metro Mondego?” asked the CDU, referring to the Mondego Mobility System, which provides for the circulation of electric buses in the city city and the old railway branch that linked Coimbra B, on the Northern Line, to Serpins, in the municipality of Lousã.
According to the note, “well-founded fears and insecurities persist, particularly among workers,” but also among users, “because they all know of similar processes that were nothing more than a step towards privatization,” with “degradation of services, provision of and schedules and higher costs of use”.
“Although the guarantees regarding the maintenance of the public nature of the management of the SMTUC remain intact and repeated (…), the form and objectives proposed for the absorption, by the municipal structure, of eventual problems of financial management and of human resources”, in the collective transport of Coimbra, “have unclear or convincing objectives and do not solve any of the main problems of this service”, considered the CDU.
The political force, represented in the municipal executive by Francisco Queirós, who in the previous administration was part of the SMTUC administration, argued that “neither the studies presented, nor the proposal under discussion, show how the eventual -and unproven- gains in service management will compensate or justify the reduction in workers, the breakdown of the cohesion of a hundred-year-old organic unit and, even less, will demonstrate how internalization will contribute to a better, more reliable and attractive service, capable of responding effectively and territorial coverage and schedules to the needs of the entire population” of the municipality.
“If there are difficulties in the board of directors of the SMTUC to fulfill its role, it is up to the executive and the mayor to find the most effective solutions so that it does so and does not hide the problems under the rug,” he defended.
José Manuel Silva was elected president of the municipality of Coimbra, in the 2021 municipal elections, at the head of the Together We Are Coimbra coalition, which brings together PSD, CDS, PPM, Volt, RIR, Aliança and Nós, Cidadãos.
Source: Observadora
