Costa admits he will miss the 26,000-home target in 50 years from April 25.

The Prime Minister admitted this Wednesday he will miss his target of building 26,000 homes for needy families over 50 years from April 25, with the BE leader saying the government “must be held accountable” for failing to deliver on promises.

On the return of the fortnight’s debate, BE leader Mariana Mortagua focused much of her intervention on the health situation as well as the housing issue, questioning director-general António Costa about promises of new homes that would be ready in April. 2024, 50 years after the Carnation Revolution.

“We will clearly miss the target of 26,000 homes ready by April 25, 2024. I’m very sorry, but we are not going to reach this figure,” Costa admitted in his response.

The Prime Minister said that in the first survey of the National Housing Strategy, “municipalities identified 26,000 homes in need,” but later, “when funding rules were changed, a new survey was carried out, which increased from 26,000 to approximately 60,000 homes.”

“Meanwhile, we had two years of paralysis of the country as a whole during the pandemic,” he explained.

Regarding the PRR timetable, António Costa said that “by the end of 2026, 32,800 houses will be built.”

“Right now, between tender, work or completion, we already have 17,500 homes. In April 2024 we will see how many houses we have built between completion, work and design,” he added.

In her response, Mariana Mortagua emphasized that “competition, work and imprisonment are very different things.”

“The government did not fulfill these promises and must be held accountable for this, because the construction crisis did not occur equally in all sectors. Over the past five years, almost 300 more hotels, 20 thousand beds, have been built,” he said. .

Adding that “more beds are likely to be built in luxury resorts in Grandol over the next three years than there are affordable beds throughout the country,” the BE leader said this “government has condemned itself to a policy of patchwork housing.” when he failed to resolve the crisis in the sector.

In March, during a parliamentary debate and in response to then BE leader Catarina Martins, António Costa said that despite the delay caused by two years of the pandemic, he was not giving up the goal of having 26,000 decent homes for low-income families by April 2024 of the year.

“It is true that two years of pandemic have delayed the 26,000 homes programme, but we are convinced that between the building work and the temporary measures we are proposing, namely subletting, this is not a target we can meet. must give up now and continue to fight to be as close as possible,” António Costa said at the time.