If anyone needs a vacation in this hot August, it’s José Manuel Bolieiro’s government.
The accumulation of blunders this summer is such that the best thing to do is to go on vacation, clear their heads, and come back with a new energy for the rest of the legislature.
The coalition lacks strategy and political articulation. The old problem of inability to communicate aggravates the lack of common sense in many decisions, and regional secretaries are at a clear low ebb.
It started with the needless rudeness of the priorities for nurseries, then moved on to the terrible management in the appointment of the SATA board, continued with the shrapnel over the extension of the Pico runway, Berta Cabral’s hasty and thoughtless statements without measuring the political consequences, concluding these days with the nonsense about the closure of SATA stores, compounding the error with the RIAC blunder.
It’s simply surreal with such amateurishness.
It couldn’t have been worse.
As if that weren’t enough, the government is making payments to various institutions, companies, and families amid all this mess, leaving everyone on the verge of a nervous breakdown.
We had already seen this movie in previous governments, but this one came to power swearing it would do things differently, leaving everything the same or even worse.
First, there was the excuse of governing by twelfths, then the bureaucracy of the Regional Budget, but the document has already been approved and published for over a month. Payments have already been decreed in the Official Journal, as with PROMEDIA, but the money still doesn’t reach the companies’ accounts, which are increasingly strangled by such a squeeze.
The Azorean economy may not wither away shortly. Still, it certainly won’t with this restrictive, bureaucratic and completely wrong policy from a public administration that behaves like the biggest deadbeat in the region.
The firefighters are complaining that they have families to support, the nurses are getting tougher about defaulting on debts owed to the sector, the fishing associations and construction companies are still waiting for financial support from the time of Covid (pandemic), the small and medium-sized enterprises are claiming 12 months’ arrears, the hotel and restaurant industry is also waiting for support to keep jobs and a huge number of suppliers are claiming arrears that already exceed 100 million euros.
The icing on the cake is the Court of Auditors’ audit of the HDES, revealed this week, which shows that this government continues to underfund the health system, just as the previous ones did, and there is no difference.
As a construction entrepreneur from Pico who used to be mayor says, “There’s no point in complaining to the coalition leaders anymore. Let’s go straight to Pacheco do Chega, and he’ll hammer away at the government.”
This is what Azorean politics have become, with a weekend opposition leader and the parties competing in a championship over who makes the most requests and communiqués that nobody cares about, all sitting on the beach pretending to work. What a shame!
José Manuel Bolieiro and his team are taking an endless list of messes on vacation.
It’s 150 days since this government took office and the best thing it can do, instead of blowing out the candles on the cake, is to go on vacation and refresh its ideas.
But before you throw in the towel, don’t forget to pay what you owe…
Happy vacations!
Osvaldo Cabral
Editorial Diário dos Açores -August 4th, 2024 – Translated by Diniz Borges

NOVIDADES will feature occasional opinion pieces from various leading thinkers and writers from the Azores to give the diaspora and those interested in the current Azores a sense of the major opinions on some of the archipelago’s issues.