The Mayor of Portimão Isilda Gomes today met the Prime Minister to explain the dire state of the council finance.
At the meeting the Portimão mayor emphasised the effort that her newly formed executive is making to reduce the running costs at the council, and explained that there are now worrying signs that the municipality is unable to meet the most basic social needs of the population.
The mayor already has called for a full audit of the municipal accounts, and went on to explain to Pedro Passos Coelho that special solutions are needed for special cases.
Portimão’s problem is that is needs to have a current account surplus to enable it to benefit from the council bailout fund established by the government to help bombed out councils. Without being able to borrow to fund current expenditure the council is effectively insolvent and any thoughts of renegotiating its debts without a govcernment bailout are fantasy.
The government approved the application by Portimão under the Support Programme for Local the Economy in mid-2013, but this support is still ‘under consideration’ by the Court of Auditors, meanwhile the council’s finances are thought to have plunged further into the red making it hard under existing rules for the Court of Auditors to approve the money.
Initially the government rescue fund was promised to councils for February 2014, but last week the Secretary of State for Local Government said that the law is still being prepared and will not be completed before the end of the first half of the year.
“It is essential that an immediate resolution is found to the most pressing problems of the municipality," according to Gomes who is focused on getting the government bailout money to stabilise the city’s financial problems and enable a breathing space in which sensibly to plan its financail future.
The mayor took the opportunity to discuss the situation at Portimão Hospital where around 80% of the doctors have signed a petition to oust the current head, Dr Pedro Nunes.
Gomes also discussed the renovation and dredging works for Portimão port, announced by the Minister of the Economy last summer, and hoped that there are no delays so the cruise ship business can bring revenue to the city.
Gomes estimates that the number of cruise ship passengers can "increase tenfold" from the current 20,000 to 200,000 passengers per year after the work has been completed.
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