The movement A New Hope (UNE) accuses the mayor of Porto Santo, Nuno Batista, of staging an “institutional firmness” against Binter Airlines to try to erase months of inaction and a lack of results.
In reaction to the news published in this Saturday’s edition of DIÁRIO, which reports the intention of the Mayor of Porto Santo to move forward with a formal complaint against the Spanish carrier, the leader of UNE, Luís Bettencourt, issued a harsh statement where he questions the position of the municipality and its party alignment.
For the councilman, the threat of complaint “far from reassuring the population, only reinforces a question that has long demanded an answer: what has been concretely done to date? For months, there was talk of meetings and contacts to draw up new specifications, but questions what the island actually gained with so much talk?”
“Cancellations follow one another. The constraints remain. The losses accumulate,” Luís Bettencourt warns, stressing that entrepreneurs, students, workers, and patients continue to pay the bill for instability, and that Nuno Batista’s complaint comes only when the situation has become “impossible to hide.”
Responding directly to Nuno Batista’s statements to DIÁRIO – in which the Mayor said that “whoever is sleeping definitely has to wake up” – Luís Bettencourt reverses the target of criticism: “It is not the population of Porto Santo that has to wake up. Whoever governs is the one who has the obligation to be awake.”
The main face of UNE also dismantles the “disappointment with the current political situation” expressed by the Mayor. Luís Bettencourt recalls that the PSD governs both in the Region and in Lisbon, stating: “After all, who are you disappointed with? With your own party? With the governments of your political space?”
“When there is a problem with Binter, there is public indignation, there is a threat of complaint, and there are harsh words. But when the problem is with the Porto Santo Line, the silence becomes deafening. There is no longer the same bravery.”
Luís Bettencourt also took the opportunity to remind those in governance that Porto Santo was without marine transport for approximately six weeks. “This still happens,” he said, “in the middle of the 21st century. It is intolerable that Porto Santo and its people continue to be treated as ” second-class citizens who will accept anything thrown their way!’
Luís Bettencourt also extends criticism to the Regional Government, specifically targeting Eduardo Jesus, for announcing “millions for tourism in Madeira, while pennies continue to arrive for Porto Santo.” Pennies that, he stresses, are reflected in “political attention, strategic investment and real commitment.”
Assuring that the problem of mobility on the island “is not accidental, it is political”, Luís Bettencourt concludes by stating: “Porto Santo doesn’t need more iconic photo shoot meetings. It does not need any more selective indignation. It needs respect and someone who defends the island and parish without fear, and without partisan subservience.”
Samantha Gannon
info at madeira-weekly.com
Views: 63
