Minister of Culture says that the contract with the Portuguese will be signed “very soon” – RTP

“After the approval of this budget, I am sure that it will not take long (…), the concession agreement is for very brief,” said the ruler before the members of the Commission of Culture and Communication and of the Commission for Budget and Finance.

The constant postponement of the signing of the contract for the provision of news services between the Portuguese and the Status for the triennium 2016-2018 motivated today questions of the deputies, particularly the opposition, to the minister who has the responsibility of social communication.

The social-democrat Pedro Pimpão recalled that on the 17th may the ruler said that the new contract-program was done and ready to be signed, but that after six months, still nothing has happened, what has caused important financial constraints in the agency news.

“we live in a duodecimal system, no one spoke about it today,” said the deputy of the PSD, referring to the fact that the strengthening of the financial data this year to Lusa does not have practical impact, due to the company having to live with a management regime twelfths for the lack of a contract program.

The regime of the straight-line implies that the monthly expenses are limited to 1/12 of the ceiling of expenditure in the previous year.

Still on the news agency Lusa, Castro Mendes said today that the Government is available to increase the compensatory allowance in 2017, after the initial proposal of the State Budget to predict 13,240 million euros in the next year or less 2.6 million than budgeted for this year.

At the beginning of the month, mrs PS ms Gabriela Canavilhas, the former minister of Culture, announced that the bench socialist “will display in the speciality” a proposed amendment to the State Budget on the compensation for Lusa to correct the reduction in the budget proposal.

The minister of Culture refused even today, the criticism of the deputies of the PSD and the CDS-PP to the policy of this government to Lusa, referring to the fact that it was the previous Executive supported by those parties which “asfixiou the company cuts financial for several years.

The Contract for the Provision of News Service and information of Public Interest defines the services of the public service that we must provide, in exchange for the provision of these services that the State pays financial compensation to the only news agency in Portugal.