Paulo Raimundo says the new year has brought “new difficulties” and insists on higher wages

This Wednesday, the general secretary of the PKP considered that the new year had brought “new difficulties” with increases in rents, telecommunications and travel fees, and insisted on the need for higher wages and price controls.

This morning Paulo Raimundo went to Moscavide with a community contact initiative, which was initially planned to take place on the street, but which, due to the rain, ended up being redirected to the local market, where there were only fruit sellers and fishmongers who complained to the general secretary PCP for the lack of clients due to lack of infrastructural conditions, as well as for the rising cost of living.

In a conversation with reporters, the PKP leader emphasized that the purpose of this initiative was to outline the “idea of ​​“new year, new restrictions,” noting that 2024 began “with a reduction in rents, telecommunications prices, road tolls, food.” .

“This means the degradation of everyone’s life, and we will accept tomorrow [quinta-feira] to the Assembly of the Republic to ask the government these questions: about degradation and the increase in the cost of living and specific measures to address this issue,” he recalled.

According to Paulo Raimundo, the current situation “can only be solved in two ways.”

“First of all, increasing wages and pensions. On the other hand, specific measures that reduce people’s expenses, stopping income growth, as we proposed, fixing and controlling prices for essential goods, reducing VAT on communications, gas, electricity,” he listed .

The PKP general secretary said the measures were fundamental, “already adopted at the end of last year” and continue to be in force today, stressing that his party will not abandon them.

“We seem to live in two different worlds: the world that governments present to us, the world in which everything is going well, and there is the concrete life of people, which has nothing to do with reality,” he said. . .

Asked whether the situation in the education sector shows that, in addition to new difficulties, the new year also brings with it old problems, Paulo Raimundo replied that education and health issues are “two fundamental problems” in the country that are “connected.”

According to the leader of the PKP, in both areas there is a “shortage of professionals and a lack of conditions for their retention by the state,” but there is also disrespect for these professionals, and not only “from a financial and salary point of view.”

Paulo Raimundo believes that it is “obvious” that for teachers such an assessment implies a complete replacement of working hours.

“This issue of recognizing lost time, stolen time… There are financial issues associated with this, but it is not the only issue: it is an issue of career evaluation, respect for careers,” he said.

Already answering the question about the call of several independent figures, such as the writers Mario de Carvalho, Rui Zink or the journalist José António Cerejo, published on Tuesday by Público, to vote for the HDZ in the next legislative elections, Paulo Raimundo considers that if it is “good news ” and a sign that “instills confidence and hope” in the coalition.

The General Secretary of the PKP emphasized that in the various contacts he has had with the population, there are several people who tell him that even though they voted for another party in the 2022 or 2019 legislative elections, they are now “in in the process of rapprochement” with the CDU.

“It’s positive for us, but most of all it’s positive for each of them because it has consequences for people’s lives. We are tired of saying, and I will repeat it: when the PKP and the CDU move forward, people’s lives improve forward and improve,” he said.