In a move covered by EU legislation and adopted by Portugal, the socialist administration is to ban trade cash transactions of €3,000 or more from next January.
The draft law prohibits any such cash transactions with a suitably stiff fine of 25% of the value if a cash payment is detected which exceeded the limit.
Following on from all the controversy of the Vale do Lobo ‘water wars’ there is a new ‘outrage’ inflaming residents in and around the troubled development.
The problem centres on allegations of collusion between Loulé council and its subsidiary, the service supplier Infralobo. The ruse, say residents, is getting householders to foot the bill for works that is really nothing to do with them.
The head of the Algarve’s Commission for Coordination and Regional Development (CCDR- Algarve) has been sacked, mainly because he is the head of the Algarve’s Social Democratic Party - the one that is not running the country any longer.
The pretext for dismissing David Santos was that he "had not met the conditions necessary to observe the guidelines issued by his superiors," but the fact the he is not a Left Bloc, Communist or Socialist politician has more to do with his removal than his work performance.
The Algarve’s mayors group AMAL is to initiate a road safety plan concentrating on the EN125 ‘road of death’ to reduce accidents and fatalities.
As the Via do Infante motorway seems set to remain a tolled road, pushing thousands of cars an hour onto the over-burdened EN125 ‘alternative route,’ the Algarve’s 16 council mayors are to develop an Intermunicipal Plan for Road Safety, which aims to reduce road accidents.
A new bill has been approved in parliament that could see the end to Portugal’s municipal kennel system putting down thousands of cats and dogs each year.
The proposal still requires final approval to be passed into law but MPs say that in this case the new law almost certainly will pass through the necessary legislative process and animals can look forward to the chance of freedom and happiness, rather than lethal injection.
Filipe Silva, the Algarve businessman on trial for abducting and hiding his daughter Ellie for seven months, was meant to be sentenced today, but the conclusion of the legal proceedings was postponed.
Faro Court now has set aside June 24th for what hopefully is the final hearing in the trial for the kidnapping of Ellie Silva in September 2012 after a period of parental access.
Portugal’s Minister of Finance Mário Centeno is in negotiations with the European Commission to fiddle the figures.
Centeno is looking for a ‘more favorable accounting treatment’ for Portugal’s national accounts as he wants to send Caixa Geral de Depósitos a taxpayers’ cheque for €4 billion but does not want this to appear in the figures.
The Passos Coelho government commissioned a report into the effects of reducing the price of tolls on formerly free SCUT roads, such as the Algarve’s Via do Infante.
Infraestruturas de Portugal now has released the findings which conclude that a drop in toll prices on certain roads will create an overall increase in toll revenue.
