Madeira’s entertaining yet exasperating despot, Alberto João Jardim, has managed to spend over €5 million on partying - hard.
Invoices attributable to the leader of the regional government of Madeira’s sense of fun start in 2010 and when totted up hit the €5 million point at which most premiers would seek a darkended room in which to recover.
This year alone Jardim has spent over €500,000 on entertaining and in the past has not held back with dozens of contracts for festivities.
Christmas, New Year’s Eve and Carnival are the three most lavish with illuminations, fireworks, 'consultancy' and air travel all coming out of his events budget.
The flights seem to have been for those invited to the 2010 edition of the Flower Festival and the 2011 Carnival.
Madeira’s sense of occasion did not falter at the start of, or during, the crisis and the Regional Secretariat of Culture, Tourism and Transport managed to get through €2.1 million in the year that the island’s government pleaded for more funds from Lisbon.
Jardim also is spending €4 million in July on sand for Madeira’s beaches. Lisbon’s lack of grasp when it comes to Madeira can be summed up thus, “Let the party go on!"
