Budgetary slippage and public works delays solved

The budgetary slippage and public works delays so often seen have been solved, the Secretary for Transport and Public Works, Raimundo do Rosário, has told the Legislative Assembly (AL).

Rosário was attending yesterday’s plenary session to discuss the Policy Address for 2024 about areas related to his sector.

“The budgetary slippage and delays in [the completion of] public works has been structurally solved,” the Secretary said in his opening speech to the LAG24, a statement lawmakers did not challenge.

Only lawmaker Wong Kit Cheng, who had been presiding over the AL’s Follow-up Committee for Public Finance Affairs, commented, noting the differences in the budget particularly for the works related to the new LRT lines.

According to Wong, there is spending amounting to 9.3 billion patacas for the construction of the North and South sections of the LRT’s East Line.

In response, Rosário said there is no overrun on this work. He said
long-term projects have a multiyear budget divided into different sections, and the annual budget can vary due to the different progress of the works in a given year. But at the end, the difference should be irrelevant in percentage terms.

“All current public works projects exceeding 50 billion patacas have budget overruns of less than 0.5%,” Rosário noted, reaffirming that structurally, the issue has been tackled.

As often happens during the LAG presentation, the work of the Secretary and his team again received praise from lawmakers who highlighted the high percentage of accomplishments and fulfillment of promises in the past year.