Municipal Assemblies of Portugal and Cape Verde call for appreciation and “autonomy affirmation”

The municipal assemblies of Portugal and Cape Verde want to stop being the “poor relation” of the municipal power, to be more valued, have more visibility, and see their autonomy affirmed, said today in Praia official sources.

The wish was expressed, in statements to the Lusa news agency, by the President of the Municipal Assembly of Praia, Clara Marques, and by the President of the National Association of Municipal Assemblies (ANAM) from Portugal, Albino Almeida, who started an official visit to Cape Verde.

For the association’s leader, the municipal assemblies are the “poor relation” of the municipal power, but they need more visibility due to their “central role” in democracy.

For this, he hopes to count on the contribution of the Lusophone countries in a dialogue that has already taken place in São Tomé and Príncipe.

However, he wants it to be extended to Angola and Mozambique, despite these countries’ difficulties in creating municipalities.

“But what we do is also support those who want to move forward on this path because it is, in fact, a path that is there, which has to do with subsidiarity, that is, decisions are taken closer to the people, and this also helps public money to be seen as an adequate distribution for the priorities and problems of the populations,” said Almeida, after meeting with the mayor of Praia, Francisco Carvalho.

Albino Almeida stressed that the association he directs has been doing this dialogue throughout the national territory and the autonomous regions of Madeira and Azores, totaling more than 210 associated municipalities, but defended an affirmation of the assemblies by themselves.

“The people are perfectly aware that they elected representatives, but it is good that the assemblies are also open to the people,” he stressed.

The President of the Municipal Assembly of Praia said that the visit of the delegation of ANAM takes place in the context of the festivities of the day of the municipality in the capital of the country on Friday, in which the objective is the valorization of the municipal elected officials, taking into account the importance that the municipal assemblies have in the management of the municipalities.

“We verified that there is no valorization of the municipal assemblies.”

“I tried to get in touch with them to sensitize all the municipal elected officials, including the entities and sovereign bodies, to see that the municipal assembly is a very important deliberative supervisory body and that it should be valued,” considered Clara Marques, also President of the general council of the National Association of Cape Verdean Municipalities.

During his stay in Praia, the President of ANAM will sign cooperation protocols with the local municipal assembly and the Higher Institute of Economic and Business Sciences of Cape Verde to defend common interests, such as business interests.

In the case of Praia, Clara Marques, who also held a working meeting with Albino Almeida, said that the agreement serves to help in the exchange of experience and exchange, training, visit, and exchange of documents.

“We found that it is an added value for the Municipal Assembly of Praia, and we will sensitize the other municipal assemblies in the sense that we can also do this work together throughout Cape Verde,” she promised.

“ANAM in dialogue in Lusophony” takes place on Thursday and will bring together several presidents of municipal assemblies from Cape Verde, Portugal, and Brazil, who will discuss good practices in these bodies and their role as a supervisory body and intervening in the implementation of public policies in various areas.

In the capital of Cape Verde, the President of ANAM and his entourage will meet with the President of the Republic, José Maria Neves, the Prime Minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, and other members of the government and party leaders.

With information from Lusa

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