Praia, July 31, 2024 (Lusa) - Cabo Verde's prime minister, Ulisses Correia e Silva, announced in parliament on Wednesday the creation of a new price regime with discounts of 40% on flights to and from three islands with a small domestic market.
According to the head of government, the scheme will cover the islands of Maio, São Nicolau and Brava, with connections to the latter, which has no aerodrome, taking into account journeys to or from the neighbouring island of Fogo.
Cabo Verde's air connections have been the subject of several complaints about operational faults, but also irregularities and high ticket prices.
Since February, domestic flights have been operated by Transportadora Aérea Cabo Verde's (TACV) after the concessionaire Bestfly left the country.
In the debate on the State of the Nation, the prime minister reaffirmed that, with the stabilisation of inter-island air transport, the country will implement a public service obligation regime to set minimum routes and frequencies that the operator must comply with under contract.
Meanwhile, the parliamentary leader of the largest opposition party (PAICV), João Batista Pereira, said that the government had been unable to build an integrated, competitive and safe transport system to unify the market and reduce the economic asymmetries between the islands.
‘We were promised a modern and safe fleet and regular inter-island lines, but this is still a mirage,’ said the MP from the African Party for the Independence of Cabo Verde.
In his opening speech, the prime minister listed policies and investments in the country's most varied sectors but recognised that problems such as unemployment and poverty still affect people's lives.
That's why he said that the goal is to reduce unemployment to less than 10% by 2026, reduce overall poverty to less than 20% and eliminate extreme poverty by 2026.
According to the prime minister, more well-paid jobs for young people, greater resilience in the face of external shocks, and doubling the potential of economic growth are other ‘challenges to overcome’ for Cabo Verde.
‘We have the challenge of keeping our democracy strong and prestigious and protecting it from the threats of populism, extremism and the spread of ‘fake news’ on social media,’ he continued, understanding, even so, that the state of the nation is one of “resilience, commitment and confidence”.
The PAICV bench leader said that the state of the nation was one of "social degradation, labour upheaval and institutional degradation".
The ruling Movement for Democracy (MpD) bench leader, Celso Ribeiro, said that Cabo Verde's nation is ‘changing and confident’, with economic recovery, growth, more jobs and less extreme poverty.
‘At the moment, even with the pandemic crisis in the midst, we are growing almost five times more than the growth left by the PAICV,’ said the deputy from the party that supports the government.
The president of the Cabo Verde's Independent and Democratic Union (UCID), João Santos Luís, said that the Cabo Verdean nation ‘is not doing well’, and pointed to several reasons, including thousands of people without access to primary health care or high public debt.
The MP also noted that the country still faces ‘great difficulties’ in connecting the islands and ‘great incapacity’ in combating drug trafficking and consumption and considered that the business class has ‘great difficulties’ in accessing finance.
The traditional debate on the state of the nation marks the end of the parliamentary year in Cabo Verde.
RIPE/ADB // ADB.
Lusa
