PRR, incompetence, irresponsibility and lightness has no (but should have) limits

If the reader search the Internet, he will find several interventions of mine, including the Health Commission of the Assembly of the Republic, to ask what happens if an entity does not have a completed work (under the PRR for continuing care) on June 30, 2026. Do you have to return the funds? Does the government have any information from “Brussels” that does not share and is that why it is launching new warnings when there is no time for its execution?

For more than a year I have been asking these questions, warning of the delays that have come from the previous government (and that remained with this) in the scope of PRR. The Lisbon Warning and Tagus Valley (LVT) was launched on 10/01/2024 and most processes were completed at the end of March 2025 (some are yet to be completed). In August 2024, the Minister of Health said that a new warning would be launched, to which he was no time. However, it was this way to 11/12/2024, whose process ended with the signatures of contracts on April 17 in a public ceremony (which I consider of political propaganda) with the Minister of Cohesion and the Secretary of State for Health Management (who even announced another warning to the remaining beds).

Throughout this period, more than a year, government and public entities encouraged all private, with and non -profit entities, to advance to apply for these warnings, never warning of their completion, including not even requiring construction license or a higher phase of projects. This is why I questioned precisely if there would be time or the government would have any information from the European Union (EU) that did not share, but would enable extending deadlines.

Many of the entities did so, spending dozens and even hundreds of thousands of euros on projects, in debt with the bank, advancing to public hiring and signing contracts of endeavors of various works. In the various emails exchanged with the Secretary of State, members of his cabinet, and public organizations managers, nothing has never been told about the deadlines.

There is a Committee on the PR, which includes the representatives of the Social Sector (Confecoop, Union of Mercy, CNIS and the Union of Mutualities) and the discourse has always been encouraging applications for notices.

Behold, at a meeting I had with the Secretary of State for Health Management (which protects continuing care) on April 28th, the herself told me that “whoever did not meet the deadline of June 30, 2026 should give up and do not know why they signed the contracts if they knew they would not meet the deadline… the money goes to buy equipment for hospitals…”. I heard this phrase from the exact person who 11 days earlier signed contracts and announced the opening of another PRR warning for continuing care. I confess that I was totally incredulous…

After some phone calls and several steps I realized that I was the first in Portugal to have this information because no one else knew. How is it possible to have been deceived and dragged to this unbelievable situation, of enormous lightness and irresponsibility, playing with life, money, sustainability of hundreds of organizations that have trusted government and information (which we now realize false) that led us to candidacies and signatures of contracts that were not exequable?!

Incompetence, irresponsibility and lightness do not have (but should have) limits. I do not know where they will recruit these people, who do not have the slightest competence or the slightest knowledge of what it is to manage an organization and that they think it is possible, in the current scenario, to perform a work with the characteristics of continued care in 12 months (even in the best scenario would be practically impossible without raising the final value and with noise licenses emitted by municipalities – which I have to do), even with many entities to have the hell. public hiring.

To illustrate the reader of the consequences of this incompetence and irresponsibility, 2 months ago a public tender for a 14 million work was deserted. I recall that the PRR’s funds have long been warning to the real cost of the works. However, according to the previous and recent notice, the entity would receive a total of 5 million euros for a work that would now launch competition for 17.5 million euros, that is, not even 1/3 of the lost fund value! It is a good example of successive increases in raw materials and labor prices, as well as greed and use because there are many works to be launched under PRR and PT2030.

How is the huge damage to who, due to the warnings, has signed contracts and started works that will not be ready on 06/30/2026?! The government should be urgently responding to this, namely the ministers involved, but also the prime minister, as the government is solely responsible for this situation, in particular the secretary of state.

I suspect that, having the renegotiation of the PRR was approved a few weeks ago by the EU, in which expense transfer was authorized to, for example, more medical equipment; that continued care has become disposable. The new beds are no longer necessary and a national design?

José Bourdain

(President of the National Association of Continuing Care)