Only 19 of Portugal’s 308 municipalities, and none in the Algarve, have a working internal audit function, according to a study released today at the first Internal Audit Forum for Local Authorities which took place in Loures near Lisbon.

According to António Ferrador, head of Audit and Management Control at Loures council, just 74 of Portugal’s councils have an internal audit function, but of these only 19 take the trouble to use them.

Opposition parties today accused the Government, especially the Prime Minister, of disregarding and disdaining the poverty evident in much of the country.

The Left Bloc and the Communists left the PM in no doubt as to their views on the results of the austerity programme in the fortnightly debate held this morning in Parliament, "the policies that we have seen simply disregard the difficulties the Portuguese are having," said Communist party leader Jerónimo de Sousa as the figures were debated.

Turismo de Portugal will send €5.9 million to Algarve Tourism for it to spend in 2014, running its services and promotional campaigns in isolation from any overall promotion of Portugal as a marketable brand.

A happy tourism boss Desiderio Silva will to continue to promote the Algarve’s own brand in the domestic and international markets where hopefully any messages he comes up with for the Algarve will not conflict with Turismo de Portugal’s remit of promoting the country as a whole.

Expat pensions will soon be obliged to prove they are not dead in order to claim their pensions.

The new arrangement came in the Chancellor’s Autumn Statement at the beginning of the month.

Industrial production in the eurozone slumped in October, dashing hopes for the tepid recovery and raising questions about the EU’s handling of the crisis.

Overall, the latest figures are the worst since the height of the crisis in the eurozone. The average was a fall of 1.1% in October, against predictions of a 0.3% rise.

The Catalonia region of Spain has said a referendum on independence is scheduled for next November.

Polls show that about 50% of residents would opt for independence.

The new team at Loulé council has heard back from the external auditors, called in last September to address a noticeable lack of cash, and found the damage was worse than they had been led to believe.

The new socialist mayor Victor Aleixo has taken over after a 12 year period of financial incompetence from the Social Democrats and ordered the audit to see what needed to be done. 

The Troika today commented that actual fiscal adjustments in Portugal have been ‘very small’ and the heads of the Troika mission are not happy with the cuts that the Government has managed to achieve.

The message is that the changes have been very small and, therefore, austerity is to continue.