The CDS Santa Cruz says it is concerned that the Santo da Serra Market remains closed. The party reports that, in recent weeks, elements of the municipality have gone to the site several times and maintained contact with merchants and farmers, “trying to follow the evolution of the work and understand what continues to prevent the reopening of the space.”
Initially presented as a quick intervention, with an expected duration of about three months, the work remains uncompleted almost 9 months after its start. “The market remains closed, without a sufficiently clear public explanation for the delay being presented. This in turn has generated uncertainty in the general population and, in particular, among those who directly depend on the market for their livelihoods.”
The situation is particularly serious in the case of farmers, who will have been abandoned throughout this process, without there having been an effective concern to minimise the damage caused by delays. At an initial stage, they were placed on adjacent land, under a tent that, according to the party, did not meet adequate conditions for the exercise of the activity. Later, after the rental of this structure ended, and already in the middle of winter, the City Council dismantled the tent without ensuring a stable, organised and dignified alternative, leaving farmers exposed to all weather conditions.”
CDS Santa Cruz stresses that the Chamber “has been invoking changes to the project to justify the extension of the work, without clarifying exactly what these changes consist of or why they were not taken care of before”. The municipality also recalls that “the mayor herself, Élia AscensĂŁo, has already publicly acknowledged failures in the planning of the project.”
The CDS also underlines that the current mayor assumed, in the electoral campaign, “a firm commitment to the preservation, support and enhancement of agriculture in the municipality, especially subsistence agriculture.” In the party’s understanding, “the way farmers have been treated during the process of the Santo da Serra Market demonstrates that the president has clearly failed to honour a public commitment.”
For LĂdia Albornoz, leader of the CDS council in Santa Cruz, this situation reinforces what the party has been denouncing: “Santa Cruz is being governed without direction, without planning, and without strategy.” In the opinion of the leader, “the current executive has not demonstrated the ability to ensure competent management of the municipality,” therefore she launches the challenge to the mayor to “urgently clarify to the people of Santa Cruz about what continues to prevent the opening of the Santo da Serra Market, why these failures were not prevented in time, what still needs to be completed in the work and when will it be reopened.”
CDS Santa Cruz says that it will continue to monitor this matter and that it will take it to the Municipal Assembly, where it intends to “demand clear explanations, transparency, and the identification of those responsible for the delay in the opening of the Santo da Serra Market and for denying hardworking farmers, already pushed to the edge, their livelihoods.”
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
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