The mayor of Petrópolis, Rubens Bomtempo (PSB), said this Thursday (24) to the Temporary External Committee of Petrópolis, in the Senate, that the municipality removed, on Wednesday (23), 1,500 of the 8,750 basic baskets that were donated. by the Ministry of Citizenship to the municipality.
The items have been stored in a warehouse in Mesquita, in the metropolitan region of Rio, since February 22. Of the 18 cities covered with the baskets, only Petrópolis had not collected the products. The complaint that the baskets were in a shed in Baixada Fluminense was made by the CNN.
According to the mayor, the city has already received more than 54 tons of food since the February 15th tragedy and, therefore, decided to use the warehouse with the almost 9 thousand basic baskets as a kind of technical reserve until the city had enough space to store donations. Also according to the manager, the 7,250 items will be removed by next week.
“Petrópolis received humanitarian aid that has never been seen before. In a short time, we were able to organize all donations very responsibly. When the federal government said we were entitled to basic food baskets, we used it there as a technical reserve until we were able to dispose of all the donations and have enough space to store them carefully. As we now have more space, yesterday [23] We removed about 1,500 basic baskets and until next week we will be removing the rest of the baskets to deliver to those who were really hit by the rains”, informed the mayor.
the commission
This was the second meeting of the Temporary Committee of Petrópolis, where technical questions about the housing of people affected by the rains in the municipality were discussed. The committee is composed of seven members and two substitutes. The collegiate will work together with authorities from the municipality of Rio de Janeiro, the state and the federal government to guarantee assistance to victims and measures to avoid similar tragedies in the future.
During the session, in addition to the mayor of Petrópolis, representatives of Inea, Civil Defense and residents of the city were heard. In his speech, the National Secretary for Protection and Civil Defense, Alexandre Lucas Alves, spoke about a Provisional Measure presented by the federal government, which needs to pass through Congressional approval, which allocates R$ 500 million for the reconstruction of houses in cities affected by disasters. natural.
In order for Petrópolis to be able to apply for the funds, the secretary said that the city government needs to inform an appropriate location for the construction of new housing, the exact number of destroyed houses and the social profile of the people affected in the rains of February 15th.
Bomtempo spoke about previous tragedies and his actions in past administrations and said that from Carnival Saturday to last Saturday, the municipality managed to provide 700 social rentals for 700 families and transferred more than 350 who were at the support points.
“With the approval of Governor Cláudio Castro, we managed to obtain an exceptional situation where the state government pays BRL 800 reais and the city government pays BRL 200 reais. An unprecedented tool for sharing social rent”, pointed out the mayor to the Commission.
Bomtempo also criticized the federal government in relation to the situation of Morro da Oficina, one of the places most impacted by the tragedy. We are looking for the Union Heritage Secretariat of the Ministry of Economy and we are still waiting for a return.
“It is good to remember that Morro da Oficina is a federal area and we need to make not only the municipal and state government co-responsible, but also the federal government that has not taken care of and does not take care of their land in the municipalities”, he said.
There will still be two other meetings of the External Commission of Petrópolis scheduled for the coming weeks until the end of the commission’s work. At the end, the members will have a period of 30 days to present a report on the situation observed in the works.
In the report, after listening to experts and civil society, the group will indicate the actions needed in the medium and long term to be carried out.
Source: CNN Brasil
