The Court of Auditors has approved Faro council’s application to borrow more money. Faro wanted €20 million to start to repay the mountain of invoices that it has accumulated over the years under the management of former mayor, Macario Correia, some 7,000 of them.
The approval of the €16.7brings welcome relief to the council’s finances which appear to have been handled with a degree of carelessness.
The money comes from the government’s Support Programme for the Local Economy, in other words the Portuguese taxpayer, and Faro council treasury will soon be able to pay those creditors who have waited two years or more for their accounts to be settled.
New mayor Rogério Bacalhau tried to inject a positive note into the proceedings saying that the loan will enable the municipality to "inject capital into the local economy, since most creditors are businesses in the municipality of Faro." Only a politician could see the borrowing of more money as a wonderful thing for 'the community' as it is the community that will have to pay the money back, with interest, over the next 20 years, long after Rogerio Bacalhau and the current council executive has retired
Bacalhau expects the first installment of 60% of the total authorised to be released in the next few days, with the next 20% payable when he has supplied proof of full payment of the outstanding invoices in date order, and so on until all the businesses foolish enough to have done business with the council are paid off.
The reason that the €20 million asked for was reduced to €16.7 was due to the rejection by the Court of Auditors of a move by the council for the loan to include paying off the accumulated debts of the municipal company Polis Ria Formosa - nice try.
