IL attacks public administration results, Montenegro refuses to fire employees

The president of the Liberal Initiative criticized the government today for not knowing the exact number of public administration workers and for settling for "mediocre" results in the sector, but the prime minister immediately warned her that he refuses to lay off employees.

These positions were exchanged by Mariana Leitão and Luís Montenegro in the first biweekly debate of the current legislature in the Assembly of the Republic.

In her first biweekly debate as IL leader, Mariana Leitão confronted the Prime Minister with the alleged existence of around nine thousand teachers who, she said, were unknown what they do, but who receive a salary.

In this context, he attacked the Minister of Education, Fernando Alexandre, for admitting that he did not have reliable figures on the number of employees in his sector, something that, in his view, has serious consequences for the financial management of a government.

"Are we paying salaries to people who don't work in schools, or are we leaving thousands of students without classes while resources are being spent without any control?" he asked.

In his response, Luís Montenegro praised the “frankness” of his minister, Fernando Alexandre, for admitting that the Ministry of Education’s figures were not reliable and stressed that the State reform “is a political design” of the current Government.

He then drew a line of demarcation in relation to the Liberal Initiative: "The honourable member may raise the possibility of us doing away with or firing public servants, but we do not raise that possibility."

The alternative, according to the executive leader, is to have a public administration with “the employees that comprise it duly motivated and doing what needs to be done.”

"When the government wants to simplify the functioning of the administration, when it wants to streamline processes, it is also addressing human resources. We are also addressing the possibility of having sufficient savings that can be used to increase the value of public administration employees, both in terms of salary and career advancement. This is our path, without losing sight of the balance of public finances," the Prime Minister emphasized.

In her reply, Mariana Leitão demanded to know from Luís Montenegro whether he was paying nine thousand salaries more than the employees supposedly employed. The Prime Minister responded that he "assumes" they are working, unless they have some legal instrument that allows them to be in a different situation.

"The Prime Minister presumes," the IL president reiterated. In this context, she challenged the executive leader's refusal to make layoffs.

"Doesn't it seem to you that being average in terms of staff numbers but far below in terms of results is the perfect definition of incompetence and poor human resource management? Making blind commitments about the future of public administration without even a rigorous assessment of its size or efficiency, doesn't it seem irresponsible to you?" Mariana Leitão continued.

During this debate, Mariana Leitão also accused the government of "copying" proposals from the Liberal Initiative, something Luís Montenegro rejected. He responded: "We count on the positive contributions of the Liberal Initiative and, ultimately, we somehow excuse the excessive language."

"But we don't copy the Liberal Initiative's ideas: we can sometimes have similar ideas. And every now and then, we can actually take advantage of those that actually have the feasibility to produce good results," the prime minister countered.