The Mayor of Funchal, Miguel Silva Gouveia, met with the Commander of the PSP in Madeira, Luís Simões, on an urgent basis, in order to address the growing public unrest and the diminished sense of security that has been verified in the city over the past few months, triggered by several criminal occurrences, such as thefts, threats to physical integrity and acts of vandalism
The situation has been out of control during the public health crisis and the period of confinement.
Miguel Silva Gouveia is clear when stating that “the Funchal City Council will not admit that this type of situation continues to occur and that the social peace and security that have always made a city like Funchal stand in jeopardy. Faced with a new situation like the one we are experiencing, we feel that the entities that have the responsibility to act are having difficulties in adapting and that there has been a void in terms of responsiveness and leadership, the definition of competences, and, above all, of concrete actions. Now, this cannot continue to happen and that is why, from now on, we assume from the front that the CMF will lead the fight against vandalism, crime, and insecurity in the city. “
The Municipality is defining, for this purpose, a set of actions to be applied immediately on the ground and, in this sense, the meeting with the PSP was the first of a series of meetings that are being agreed this week, also with the Comarca da Madeira, with other security forces, with social associations working on the street and with all parties represented in the Funchal Municipal Assembly.
From the meeting with the PSP, Miguel Silva Gouveia welcomes, from the outset, the Command’s receptivity to face this problem and to associate itself with the response effort that the CMF is structuring. “We can thus announce that starting this week, multidisciplinary teams will be created between the PSP and the Municipal Inspection, in order to intensify actions in the field day and night, and to identify and accompany individuals with deviant behaviors, who are in this creating problems on the street, and who need help. We believe that the population will already begin to feel the difference. “
The president reinforces, finally, that “the Municipality is also evaluating all solutions, also in articulation with the PSP, that allows preventing or acting in the face of acts of vandalism, criminal crimes or any type of phenomenon that creates uneasiness or danger, in the in order to guarantee, as soon as possible, the restoration of decent security conditions for the population, for our traders and for all those who visit us, as has always been a given in Funchal over the years. “