The Mayor of Silves, Rosa Palma, said that she does not understand the reasons for the opposition voting against the council’s proposed budget for 2015.
The draft budget of €32.6 million was rejected by PS and PSD councillors in a council meeting on Wednesday despite this being the lowest budget ever proposed for the Silves municipal area, some €3.3 million lower than last year’s and way below the heady days of council spending under Isabel Soares' regime.
Rosa Palma said that the proposals submitted by the opposition "are almost entirely" included in the budget document and called the budget "workable and transparent."
Fernando Serpa, the opposition socialist councillor, said that the amounts in the budget for social support and for boosting the local economy were not explicit and were only referred to in general terms which does not guarantee that they will happen.
Serpa, still bitter after losing the election to mayor Palma in the last election, managed to pick enough holes in the proposal to gain support for rejecting the budget.
This provoked accusations from the mayor that the opposition was being perverse and opposing the budget for the sake of being awkward.
There will be a further budget meeting next Monday to try and hammer out a workable financial plan for 2015.
The Silves budget has fallen year on year for four years and is nearly €10 million lower than in 2012 when Isabel Soares was running the council.
The budget was a political play thing in 2011 also, when the PS and the CDU were in opposition and the council was led by the PSD.
The 2011 budget was rejected three times in a process that went on for weeks and prevented any sensible forward planning for the budgetary year ahead.
The same may happen again as the established political figures in Silves were more than irritated when outsider Rosa Palma won the council elections a year ago and are making things as awkward as possible for the newcomer.
Comments
Hang on ... but every municipal worker is there for political or family reasons. Whether they are qualified and experienced to be doing the job is irrelevant.
Go into the municipal tourist office or any venue like a gallery or the municipal archives or museum. Anywhere in Portugal. Ask whether the curator is qualified in tourism, history, the arts, archaeology.
Wait for the shy giggle ... the shrug. Nada. Then ask them 'What's your connection with the Municipal?'
The Reply - 'relative, family member, lover ... got me in to this'. Works every time .... prove it to yourself !
How then can you prune the Municipals ??? Does Portugal's economy have to crash first ?
Yet now we hear of Portugal asking for a debt haircut like wot Greece had. And new debt repayment rescheduling.
But what - in reality - has Portugal done to trim its monster public sector spending ? Little snips .. that is all.