The secretary-general of the PCP warned today that the government is beginning to find justifications for not fulfilling electoral promises and, on the subject of the executive’s new logo, he considered that “when you have nothing else to offer, you offer logos”.
Speaking to journalists at the rally “Defending the National Health Service. Comply in April”, organized today in Lisbon by the Common Front of Public Administration Unions, Paulo Raimundo was asked if he thought that changing the government’s logo should have been a priority.
“With no disrespect to the author, I think this is a non-issue. (…) When we have nothing else to offer, we offer logos,” he replied.
The Communist leader made fun of the fact that, so far, the government has responded “very precisely” to the question of the logo and also “to the idea of corruption, which we can already see will come to nothing”, in an allusion to the executive’s decision to mandate the Minister of Justice to talk to all parties with parliamentary seats, justice sector agents and civil society with a view to drawing up a package of measures against corruption.
“And there is a third idea that is beginning to take shape, both on the part of the government and on the part of those who support the government, which is the idea, to which I made several references during the election campaign, that today you promise everything and tomorrow, when you get into power, you find the justifications for not being able to fulfill what you promised,” he said.
For Paulo Raimundo, it seems that the executive is “already starting down this road”, at a time when “the procession is still in the churchyard”.
Asked about the commission of inquiry proposed by Chega into the case of the twins, the communist leader replied that “that’s just smoke”, and, asked if he thought the report by the General Inspection of Health Activities (IGAS) should be made public, he said yes.
“It’s a report that has a lot of information and the conditions must be created for it to be made public, unless there is some specific procedure that prevents it from being made public,” he said.
On the subject of the Portuguese-Brazilian twins, Paulo Raimundo defended the need to “guarantee the possibility of access to health for all people, whatever they may be”, and considered that “it is indeed undignified for a treatment to cost four million euros”, in a reference to the drug Zolgensma.
“This is undignified and must be resolved once and for all. In this specific case it’s not possible, but it is possible to increase the production of medicines in order to lower the prices of medicines and put an end to this scandal that is really filling the coffers of the big pharmaceutical industry,” he stressed.
Regarding the rally he attended, Paulo Raimundo was asked if it wasn’t too early to be on the streets, given that the government took office this week.
“All the problems that existed on March 9 still exist: the difficulties of access to health care, the problems of a shortage of doctors, the lack of recognition and appreciation of careers… Everything that existed is still there and we need to demand change,” he said.
The PCP leader maintained that “there is an express will on the part of the PSD, CDS, IL and Chega, but it also comes in the course of the PS’s wrong choices”, which aim to “dismantle and destroy the SNS.
“So it’s not too early, it’s too late to defend the NHS,” he said.
