The Executive will place Estamo, a company that concentrates the State’s real estate assets, under shared responsibility between Finance and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing (MIH). To JE, the minister responsible for Housing states that the measure aims to speed up the use of State properties in favor of public housing policies. According to Miguel Pinto Luz, the new organization is the opportunity to place much of the State’s heritage at the service of the population.
The Government will place Estamo, a company that concentrates State real estate assets valued at around one billion euros, under the shared responsibility of Finance and the Ministry of Infrastructure and Housing. This dual guardianship, until now in the hands of the Ministry of Finance, aims to “put much of the State’s assets at the service of the population”. The revelation was made to Jornal Económico by the new Minister of Infrastructure and Housing who considers it “fundamental” to increase supply, signaling that in the next two to three weeks the Executive will present measures in Housing, after this first sign to develop a public policy in sector that affects the Government’s organization by placing Estamo under shared supervision.
“The transfer of coordination from Estamo SA to Housing is to speed up the use of State properties in favor of public housing policies. It is a clear change of paradigm in the way the current AD Government wants to manage the State’s assets and which speaks well of the ambition that this Government places in the area of Housing”, the government official told JE on the sidelines of the Special Report – Real Estate Challenges in 2024, which took place this Tuesday, in Lisbon, and which was organized by Jornal Económico.
According to Miguel Pinto Luz, in practical terms with the dual guardianship of Estamo, “MIH will have the power to look at Estamo’s portfolio and, together with Finance, select the properties that are best suited to implementing a public housing policy for quality”.
During the event organized by JE, the Minister of Infrastructure and Housing had signaled that the Government’s new organization places Estamo under dual supervision of Finance and Housing, highlighting the challenge of “developing a true public housing policy, lasting and transformative.” The minister also anticipated that “in the next two to three weeks, the Government will present the measures that it considers fundamental in Housing”.
It should be remembered that Estamo replaced the Directorate-General of the Treasury (DGTF) in the management of public properties, as determined by the socialist Executive in July last year, but the supervision remained solely in the hands of the Minister of Finance, with no vocation for the promotion of public policies for housing.
At issue is the decree-law that established the new model of integrated management of public real estate assets, that is, all properties in the private domain of the State and in the indirect administration of the State.
In practice, Estamo began to perform the powers that were previously exercised by the DGTF in terms of management of public real estate assets, to allow “integrated action and more focused on professional management”. But the Ministry of Finance continued to maintain the supervision of the company with exclusively public capital created with the purpose of ensuring the administration of real estate assets in the public sphere.
The previous Government signaled that this new management model for public real estate assets aimed to “refocus the DGTF’s activities around its nuclear missions, reinforcing its capacity within the scope of State financial intervention operations, monitoring matters relating to the exercise financial protection of the public administrative and business sector and the shareholder function of the State”.
In accordance with this diploma, the integrated management of public real estate assets began to be developed by Estamo