In a candid interview, Health Minister Adalberto Campos Fernandes has suggested that Portugal’s health service suffers losses through fraud and theft of €900 million a year, or around 10% of the annual budget.
Promising that many cases of fraud will be revealed soon, the minister stated that, "Many are under investigation and, in the coming days, they will naturally come to light," in an interview with Diário de Notícias.
Paulo Campos, the former president of the National Institute of Medical Emergency (INEM) has given the Judicial Police a computer file containing notes he took of a meeting in 2014 with Paulo Macedo.
The soon-to-be president of Caixa Geral, Macedo, then was the Minister of Health and the notes record him allegedly demanded the elevation of Helena Lalanda e Castro to a more senior position at INEM where she already was a director.
The Algarve had a record year for tourism in 2016, "but there still is room for growth," according to regional tourism boss, Desidério Silva.
There is potential from new markets, such the US, but the fact that TAP does not provide many connections to Faro airport is hindering the arrival of more tourists to the region.
Portugal’s Prosecutor's Office is to pursue its investigation into the assault on Rúben Cavaco, the young man from Ponte de Sor so savagely beaten up by the Iraqi Ambassador’s twin sons last August.
The investigation will continue, despite an out-of-court agreement announced between the parties, a source in the Attorney General's Office has revealed.
The online platform 'Adelaide.farm', was launched on Wednesday, January 11th, at the Regional Directorate of Agriculture and Fisheries of the Algarve, Patacão, Faro, to allow small producers to sell their products "at fair prices," delivering them to local points for collection by householders.
The project aims to "solve the problem of the disappearance of small farmers", although it could also cover large producers, explained its promoter, Alice Teixeira, who also wants to help stop the increasing abandonment of agricultural activity due to lack of economic viability.
Paulo Lalanda e Castro was heard at the Court of Criminal Investigation in Lisbon on Wednesday, accused, along with Luís Cunha Ribeiro, the former president of the emergency ambulance service INEM, of using Ribeiro’s influence to unduly benefit Octapharma by ripping-off the State for hunderds of millions of euros.
The lawsuit has three more defendants, two lawyers and the former head of the Portuguese Hemophilia Association.
Between 200 and 300 people demonstrated on a freezing cold Thursday evening in front of the Spanish consulate in Lisbon against the Almaraz nuclear power plant and its planned nuclear waste dump.
The protest was attended by private citizens, ecologists and politicians from both Portugal and Spain.
Social Democrat MPs have questioned the government over the "postponement of essential safety work to the Guadiana bridge."
Algarve MPs José Carlos Barros and Cristóvão Norte have asked about the "successive and unacceptable" postponement of maintenance and rehabilitation work at the Guadiana International Bridge.
