Portugal’s Communist Party MPs have accused the socialist government of going back on electoral promises about demolitions on the Ria Formosa islands: there are now just three days to go before the bulldozers are back.
The communists simply want to know whether Prime Minister António Costa will or will not stop the demolitions as he promised to do before he was elected.
The socialist government has been swinging one way and another over this question with obfuscation, lies and untruthful guarantees handed out like confetti.
The current Minister for the Environment, João Pedro Matos Fernandes, was caught out in parliament as he assured MPs that the demolition of island properties was not decided and would be handled on a 'case by case basis' at the same time as a further 81 demolition notices were being mailed by Polis Litoral Ria Formosa.
Called back to parliament to explain himself, the unimpressive minister admitted that the demolitions will continue, although "not affecting any first homes."
The communists point out that continuing witth these demolitions “violates a commitment made by the Socialist Party to the people” and wants to know whether António Costa now will "honor the commitments made by the PS with the people before the parliamentary elections" and stop the demolitions scheduled for Thursday morning, October 27th.
MPs João Oliveira and Paulo Sá distinctly recall that during the last year and a half, both the Socialist and Communist Parties were as one over the Ria Formosa demolition question with the socialists promising in their campiagn that they would visit the Ria Formosa to "stop the demolitions, review the coastal planning project (POOC), keep the historical core of Culatra, Hangars and Farol and defend the rights of these traditional fishermen."
The PM no doubt will defer to his Minister who will defer to Polis which will carry on with its demolition programme despite widespread public support for the islanders who it appears are being moved on so that a luxury tourism project can be put in their place.
Paulo Sá was on a roll today as he went on to question the enfeebled Minister for the Environment about the demolition of houses at Monte Clérigo in the western Algarve where over 38 buildings are due to be destroyed, not that they are in anyone’s way.
The Communists want to know the reason for the demolitions as there has never been flooding in Monte Clérigo, even in major storms such as the January 2014 one, and of any "relationship between the demolitions and the real estate development planned near the rather beautiful beach.”
This is the point and the reason why Monte Clérigo has been targeted as the communists are well aware that a real estate company is flogging 311 hectares of countryside to be made into a tourist housing estate of 230 villas and an equal number of apartments.
The previous government denied all knowledge of this planned estate but everyone knows they were lying and that the destruction of a significant chunk of Monte Clérigo is part of an underhand plan to make the village less populated, enlarge the natural beach area, and lay down a far larger car-park for the use of ‘high quality’ tourists visiting from the new estate.
The coincidence of these targeted demolitions in Monte Clérigo and the development of a resort nearby whose owners will be able to boast of ‘our beach’, is too handy and those responsible for this abuse of the planning process need to be identified and pilloried, locked up and later exiled.
