The secretary general of the PCP insisted this Sunday that it is necessary to fix the prices of essential goods, without giving in to the “blackmail” of “empty shelves in supermarkets” made by those who “never had to face empty shelves in refrigerators”.
In this current context of rising inflation, “prices continue to rise, speculation is increasingly visible and there is a lot” that the PCP denounces this situation, said the communist leader, Paulo Raimundo, at a lunch rally in Serpa, in the district of Beja.
“We proposed fixing the prices of essential goods, in particular food goods, and what did PS, PSD, Chega and Liberal Initiative do? They voted against it, all united, time and again. and even with a full chest about this problem”, he said.
Paulo Raimundo once again defended that “it is necessary to move quickly towards setting the prices of essential goods, in particular food goods”, because this “is the measure that stops speculation” and “is a first step towards an important improvement in life of the vast majority” of the population.
“We are not going to give up this fight, we are right and we have the workers and populations with us in this demand”, he insisted, recognizing that there are those who say that “this measure would lead to empty shelves in the supermarket”.
An argument that is nothing more than “blackmail, demagoguery, hypocrisy, talk of those who have never had to face this problem that is not of the future, but that is a problem of the present”, he maintained. “She’s never had to face empty shelves in refrigerators. That’s what happens nowadays in many people’s homes and that’s what we need to quickly overcome”, she defended.
In his speech, at the regional luncheon commemorating the 102nd anniversary of the PCP, held in a pavilion in the Parque de Feiras e Exposições de Serpa, which had a “full room”, the communist leader stressed that “the general population is going through difficulties” , because “salaries and pensions do not follow the increase in the cost of living”.
“Even last Thursday, in the debate in the Assembly of the Republic, a debate marked by our party, the hypocrisy of some, the neoliberal blindness of others, all in defense of those who profit from speculation”, he said. “guns pointed” at the “posture of the PS, PSD, Chega and IL”.
But last Thursday, according to Paulo Raimundo, was also “marked” by “declarations by leaders of the Sonae group, stating that inflation is not being created by distribution”.
“They blamed everything and everyone. It was others, it was the drought, it was rain, the only thing missing was ‘Borda d’Água’. Besides, they blamed everything and everyone, except themselves”, he joked. But the truth is that large retailers, “ridden by the power they have in the market, increase the prices of food products, without any control and well above inflation”.
“The weight of inflation is being borne by the producers who sell the products to distribution and by the consumers who buy the products from distribution, that is, the poor big distribution, which makes so many sacrifices for all of us, eats on one side and eats on the other”, he lamented, also with irony.
The decision of the European Central Bank (ECB) to “raise interest rates again”, whereby “the bank is doing yet another fine business”, and the housing issue, which “gained centrality, with the right to be minister of portfolio and everything, a package of government measures and even PSD initiatives”, but in which, “beyond political illusionism”, banking and the real estate business pass “alongside the resolution of the problem”, were another of the critics of the PCP leader.