Faro council, in a pre-election spate of continuing good news, has paid off its State loan from the Financial Rebalancing Plan and is to embark on a spending spree of titanic proportion.
The final payment, €4.94 million, has been made and Faro's mayor, Rogério Bacalhau, has lost no time in announcing his spending plans.
"Just six years after taking out this loan, which had an expected duration of 20 years, the council considers that this is an historic day in the recent history of our municipality and one that should be remembered by Faro’s residents,” commented the ever-bashful mayor.
By paying-off the loan, Faro council became "the first council to free itself from the State borrowing mechanism that was set up to help councils with their excessive debts.”
In 2011, Faro council signed a financing agreement for up to €48 million, when, "it could no longer meet its financial commitments, and the salaries of its employees were at risk.”
On the positive side, the council slimmed down its spending and over-stuffed staffing levels, leaving it, “more agile and its operation costs so much lower for residents."
Faro still owes money, €32 million at the last count but this is below its annual income and its supplier payment lead-times are below 60 days, "a circumstance that Faro has not known for more than ten years.”
By paying off the State loan, Faro council has freed itself from strictures imposed by the Treasury and now can start to spend, but within its budget.
Bacalhau has earmarked €3.46 million in pre-election investments, covering nearly 40 projects across the municipality under the second and third phases of the "Faro Requalifica" programme - a spend that had been prohibited while the council still owed money under the Financial Rebalancing Plan.
Green spaces, roads, theatres, schools, football pitches, social housing, cultural centres, squares and playgrounds all will receive high-profile makeovers over the next two years in a project designed to get Bacalhau returned as mayor at the October 1st local elections.
Comments
Only last night on TV we had a politician competing for the Lisbon Presidency describing her billion and a half euro spending plans for an extended Lisbon Metro. Virtually all of it coming from Brussels. After 30 years of supposed economic development almost nothing coming from Portugal.
But wait I hear you cry. Will it really be Brussels paying for it? Can we not assume that the idiotically high Brexit leaving charge is so high and getting ever higher because Brussels has shifted the payment for myriads of similar projects across the eurozone - onto non-euro London ?