The government has announced that it will not declare a state of emergency for Albufeira despite the council and local traders association saying there clearly should be 'disaster zone' status for the city following the floods on November 1st.
Our new Minister for Interplanetary Affairs, Calvão da Silva, did say that victims and the needy 'will be helped.'
The government has wheedled itself out of issuing a 'state of emergency notice' as the minister has announced the use of three existing funds with which to trick the public; the 'municipal emergency fund,' the 'social relief fund' and the 'emergency fund' to help towards the costs of repairing the damage caused by last Sunday’s storm and rainfall that flooded downtown Albufeira.
Thursday’s council of ministers meeting passed a resolution "to make use of existing legal resources that already are available," and that it is "now necessary that the process of quantifying the damage is done."
The Government patiently explaining that Social Security funding will be responsible for adopting the necessary procedures to award funds to support and repair damage for families in this social emergency.
This all sounds great for ministers in front of TV cameras, but in practice those applying for funding will be screened and denied funding for a range of spurious reasons. The same ruse was used after the widespread forest fires in Tavira three years ago when the government promised immediate help which turned into anything but with anyone poor enough to owe social security money immediately denied emergency funding.
The release of the other two funds is equally suspect, open to abuse and may not even happen. Luckily the Albufeira residents are a hardy and stoic lot, the longer the government fannies about the harder locals will work to sort out their own problems.
The new and rather weird Minister, Calvão da Silva, has done his job by making an appearance in Albufeira, insulted the dead and living in equal measure and sweeping back to Lisbon to help ministers deny emergency funding for Albufeira that would follow a declaration of 'disaster area,' well aware that Lisbon 'despises the Algarve' - especially when money is at stake.
Partido da Terra today followed up reports that Albufeira council itself had caused the flooding due to illegal prettification works along a riverbed that served to restrict floodwater flow and by failing to open three key sluice gates in the underground channel that was meant to lead flood water away from the city centre.
The ‘Earth Party’ said that urban planning generally had been poor in Albufeira and that a "series of blunders" helps to explain the floods of last Sunday, and previously.
"The party cannot fail to draw attention to the fact that the cause of repeated flooding over the past fifty years coincides with one of the largest urban planning errors on the mainland. This will continue with repeatedly consequences for the region if serious measures are not taken to solve the problem."
“Albufeira has grown with buildings covering the natural watershed, hillsides have been waterproofed by massive building projects which have destroyed and covered natural drainage areas without taking care to ensure the necessary replacement of infrastructure."
"More serious is that this succession of blunders has being repeated over the past five decades, despite repeated warnings of floods," said the Partido da Terra president and MEP José Inácio Faria who also criticised the avarice of builders working hand-in-hand with a council administrations which cared not an iota for the land given over to more and more development in the headlong rush for the tourist euro.
