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Álvaro Viegas - Candidato do PSD a Presidente da Câmara Municipal de Olhão
Álvaro Viegas
Lawyer

The incompetent and the others

Recently, the mayor called the PSD and its leaders incompetent.

The simplest definition of incompetent is “an individual who does not master the skills and / or knowledge necessary for the proper performance of certain tasks or functions.”

So, what the Mayor wants to say is that the PSD leaders do not have the necessary knowledge of this dossier, which started as a space destined to house the local authority’s workshops and which, strangely, will become a hotel and some shops.

With the data that the population has and that are few, therefore admittedly incompetent, it is known that Bela Olhão was for sale by a real estate company for a price lower than the 4.5 million that the municipality and Ambiolhão paid.

This space was purchased to become the city’s workshops, information given by the Mayor at a session of the Municipal Assembly. Although debatable, this option was understandable, since the relocation of the current workshops is an old promise of the current mayor. What is not understood is that now, contrary, or perhaps not, the initial will, proceed to the sale of this space to build a hotel.

In view of this zigzag, several questions can be asked by this incompetent who writes this prose to you. Did the Mayor miss the truth for city deputies or change his position? If you changed your position, why didn’t you explain it to the citizens? When the municipality bought this property for workshops in an industrial area, did you explain to the seller of the property that it was your intention to change the detailed plan for that area to allow the construction of a hotel?

There is an ethical / legal issue that arises. An autarchy has the economic power, privileged information and the power to change land use. Is it acceptable for an autarchy to compete directly with real estate agents, having this means that others do not have? In a limit situation, it may happen that a local authority buys land in a non-buildable area to install a community garden there and for that purpose the land has a certain value. Soon after, the municipality changed the use of the land, making the area urbanizable and reselling that land for different use, multiplying its profits, harming the former owner of the land. Is this morally acceptable?

Is it for this purpose that local government was established in 1976?

Of course, this incompetent scribe of yours may be wrong, for lack of knowledge for the good performance of this task.