The council owned company that has run the loss-making Fatacil annual fair in Lagoa has been under pressure for years to explain how such a popular event consistently manages to lose money.
When the current council administration took over, Lagoa’s mayor, Francisco Martins, said in 2013 that Fatasul was to undergo a full audit covering the past three years in an attempt to bring some clarity to the staggering €700,000 in debt accumulated by Fatasul.
At that time, Martins said that the Fatacil fair had "lost its influence regionally and nationally. South of the Tagus it was once the largest event of its type," and he acknowledged that the loss of goodwill from exhibitors and the public related to the financial problems surrounding the fair organisers Fatasul, which is owned by the council.
The Mayor cast doubt on the organisational set-up for the fair where responsibility is divided between Lagoa council and, for no sane reason, the council’s social services department.
Then, came a long period darkness broken by today’s news that Fatasul is being wound up, that it did not trade last year and that it still managed to lose over €100,000.
The extinction of Fatasul “should be made official in the coming days” says the councillor Luís Encarnação during this week’s Lagoa Council Assembly meeting.
This topic has to be brought out into the sunlight after years of cover up and obfuscation. The council’s Report and Consolidated Accounts 2016 were being debated on Wednesday and it was pretty clear that a 2016 of €868,000 had been hit by costs associated with Fatasul which managed to lose €101,000 - effortlessly and without trading.
The council at least has decided to wind up Fatasul and it will be interesting to see how much the company actually has cost local ratepayers over recent years.
The figures are the figures - opposition councillor, Victor Carapinha, said he was "surprised" by this negative result for 2016, since the company had not traded and the costs for the last Fatacil show were covered by the council.
Luís Encarnação passed the buck effortlessly, referring to the "difficulties faced by the liquidation commission" which had to clear all of Fatasul's debts many of which are in dispute. Also, that there is one debt that has ended up in court this delaying the winding-up process. On the plus side, a Finanças audit showed there was a VAT credit due.
The death throes of Fatasul are being watched closely and one day we will find out how much this company managed to cost the good people of Lagoa - due mainly to an astonishing lack of management control related to ticketing and expenditure.
The promised 2013 review was never publicised but the accumulated losses and the prognosis for the company have been enough even for an Algarve council to draw a line under this annual loss-maker.
Meanwhile the August fair remains popular. If the council organisers stopped handing out free tickets like confetti and managed to count the number of visitors, the show should go on without further trouble or the unnecessary involvement of a separate, but council-owned company.
Next, the annual Lagoa Wine Fair which has all the hallmarks of another loss-making enterprise and no doubt will continue, spurred on by councillors' limitless sense of self-importance.
