Madeira News Blog

(13th September). The last of today’s headlines : ‘Santo da Serra Takes In Biomass Plant – Nutroton invests €22 million for energy production’. Nutroton Energy, whose CEO is an ex PSD president, will install the biomass plant in the parish to generate electricity. The decision was taken unanimously by Santa Cruz councillors, after a proposal by the majority PSD. As well as produce clean energy, the plant will bring prosperity to the area, provide new jobs, and reduce the environmental problem of disposal of poultry waste. The land needed will be transferred without cost from the council to the company. The plant will have a capacity of 8 MW.

It’s probably more theoretical than practical for most of us, but the natural gas market reaches the final stage of liberalisation at the end of this year, a time when we the domestic consumers can choose our supplier, an option that is already available to large consumers. The liberalisation of the market started in January 2007, with EDP and Galp dominating the market up until then. Switching suppliers will cost nothing, but as most of us on Madeira probably use bottled gas we will not see much impact, although the impact of liberalisation on gas pricing is yet to be seen.

(12th September). ‘Fund Doesn’t Thrive – Only one family on Madeira has signed up to the fund created to help those who can’t pay their monthly bank mortgage payments’. The central government created scheme was there to help families during the crisis who were in arrears with their mortgages, by allowing them to give up ownership, but pay rent instead, until times improved. The truth is that the results show that the Portuguese, and Madeira in particular, did not believe in this product, which allowed the ‘tenant’ the right to buy back their property until the end of 2020. The banks were not keen to get involved, being one problem, but the massive retreat in interest rates also made the whole scheme less necessary.

‘Construction Slows But It Doesn’t Stop – Home building registers the lowest fall in Portugal’. It is a significant statistic. Madeira is the region of Portugal with the smallest fall in the construction of domestic properties, signalling that the crisis has not hit as hard here in the construction sector. In the first two quarters of this year, 275 homes were licensed, a fall of 27.6%. That compares with falls of 69% in the Azores, the worst, 55% in the Algarve, and 54% in Lisbon. In 2008 the number of residential buildings on Madeira was estimated at 82,735, with the actual number of homes within those estimated to be 119,995. 32% of these buildings are located in Funchal, 16% in Santa Cruz, and 11% in Câmara de lobos.

(13th September). The count for visiting cruise ships continues to impress. 35 are due in Funchal next month, and another 100 are expected in the final two months of 2009. The three month period will see over 220,000 tourists arriving by cruise ship, by far more than any other Portuguese port. November alone will see around 100,000 visitors here (54 cruise ships).

(12th September). ‘Lobo Marinho Will Undertake More Journeys To Porto Santo In October’. An extra six crossings will be fitted in, with Porto Santo Line rejigging it’s schedule for the big Porto Santo weekend of 3rd to 5th October. High demand for that weekend will be catered for through twice daily trips on 2nd, 5th & 6th October. Monday 5th October is a public holiday, and many Madeirans want to make a long weekend break on the golden island.

(13th August). ‘PS Porto Moniz Hides Supporters – Beside not having rallies during the campaign, the socialists don’t divulge supporters in order to avoid possible pressures’. Nuno Jardim Fernandes is the top of the list in the local elections for the socialist party, and is keeping quiet as best he can about the people and support behind his bid for power. This is the strategy of the PS for the local elections of 11 October, and is based on the pressure and fears that the people in Porto Moniz are suffering. The strategy is to go door to door in the campaign, with only the PS knowing who is with them, there being no need to make supporters feel uneasy. "It is known that it is difficult to have to pick up (show) the flag of the PS", says a spokesman. Weird I know, but of course people have the right to privacy on their voting preferences. It brings to mind a conversation I had a few years ago with an ex-party campaigner for the PSD-M social democrats, who was told to tell pensioners that if they didn’t vote for the PSD their pensions would be taken away. She refused to do it, and promptly resigned her position in the party.

The final front page headline today : ‘On Porto Santo, Renata Sousa Reacts To Roberto’. The PS candidate for Porto Santo wants to know what the people of the island have to gain with the €5 million that the council there is planning to sink into the Colombo Resort project, in the attempt to restart the project that ran-aground with financial difficulties. The €5 million is a third of the Câmara’s annual budget, and although not yet absolutely committed, is promised on a ‘memorandum of understanding’ signed by various potential investors. A "megalomaniac project",that on sight "pleases no one", and showed a "number of irregularities" when it was approved by the local council. "Roberto Silva (câmara president) has to come to speak publicly about it" she said. Fair point I think, no customers, no point in spending €5 million yet, but who wants a part built eyesore left cluttering up an already cluttered shoreline.

The PS-M is due to submit it’s candidate list for Porto Santo tomorrow, whilst the PSD-M did so yesterday. President Jardim says he expects a "crushing" victory.

Portugal has registered 52 new Gripe A cases in the last 24 hours, and a creche was closed due to infection. The total now has risen to 735 cases, with 12 people actually in hospital, but all in stable condition. Most of the new cases in Portugal now are through transmission rather than imported.

In the economy :

‘More than 70% of those signed on in the employment centres receive benefits – The self employed and young people with little time in work make up the other 30%’. The number of those not entitled to the benefit is growing faster proportionally than the unemployed numbers generally.

‘Growth (PID / GDP) In The Portuguese Economy Likely To Have Reduced By 0.6% In The 2nd Quarter – Analysts point to some recovery in private consumption and in exports’. The reduction in growth is compared to the first quarter of 2009, and has yet to be confirmed, but if true it will be the 4th consecutive quarter of GDP shrinkage (-0.1%,-2%,-1.5%,-0.6%?). Estimates from two private  banks are for GDP to have shrunk by 4.2% / 3.6% over the full year of 2009, whilst the Bank of Portugal believes -3.5% is more accurate. The Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development -4.5% is more likely.

’9.3% more buildings constructed between 2001 and 2008 – Madeira is the second region of Portugal for higher growth’. Madeira is the second region of the country in terms of higher growth in the total number of buildings, according to the National Statistics Institute, who published a study ‘Construction and Housing’. During the period stated, the number of buildings increased here during the period by 9.3%, only exceeded by the Algarve at 10.6%. The national average was 7.6%. However the constructions have now dropped dramatically on Madeira, and 19.5% less buildings were licensed in 2008 than 2007. On the other hand, Madeira has the largest decrease in the average number of inhabitants per home. Between 2001 and 2008, the number declined from 2.46 to 2.06 per dwelling, a decrease of 16.3%. Nationally the average is 1.86 persons per dwelling.

‘Madeira Is The National Leader In The Use Of The Mobile Phone – The region is also in front in the consumption of subscription TV services’. We talk the least on the fixed home phone, and with Lisbon, the most on the mobile, with residential penetration rates of 88% (Lisbon) and 84% (Madeira).

(22nd June). ’20 Cases Against Insurance Companies In Civil Construction’. The association of civil construction of Madeira has around 20 of ongoing cases of insurance claims, some on appeal. The union representative claims that the law is too permissive, and allows the insurers to dodge the claims, with some claims ongoing for "many years". The workers in this sector face the greatest risks of workplace accidents, with more than three quarters of all workplace deaths. In the last 9 years, 77 civil construction workers have suffered fatal accidents. One case of a tunnel explosion in Curral das Freiras has been ongoing for six years, and meanwhile the families are left without any compensation.

‘PSP Detain 34 Drivers For Excess Alcohol’. The police last week detained 34 motorists for drink driving offences. The abnormally high number was partly due to extra police checks, especially the major operation that ran Friday night through to Saturday.

6 beaches in Funchal hoisted their blue flags at the weekend, signifying that all facilities and safety requirements are now in operation. Well that was the theory … as another article says that some of the beaches are working with fewer lifeguards than they should. The reason given is that some of the lifeguards are students at university, who won’t finish their commitments until the beginning of July.

‘Fishermans Festival In Caniçal – The first ever event takes place between 26th and 28th June’. The festival is organised to preserve the collective memories of fishing in Caniçal.

School kids have just too many books and things to carry to school each day, and nearly two thirds complain of pains related to the excess weight carried. The study carried out in Portugal reveals that as a result the majority of students are suffering postural changes. 69% have changes in the spine, 59% have protruding shoulders, and 49% have neck pains. The average school bag contains between 4.1 and 5.4 kilos.

According to the Diário, Summer didn’t officially start until 6.46am yesterday. The information came from the Astronomic Observatory in Lisbon. The same source says that Summer will end on 22nd September at 10.19pm. These are the actual times of the solstices it seems, but I have never heard of them actually defining the exact start and finish times of a season before.

‘Healing Seeds – Madeira now has brachytherapy for the treatment of prostate cancer’. Patients diagnosed with prostate cancer can already receive brachytherapy treatment on Madeira, an alternative remedy for radiotherapy and surgery, recommended for situations where there is early detection of the cancer. At the moment treatment is only carried out in the Clinic in Santa Luzia, but the urologist Ferdinando Pereira believes it will eventually reach the regional health service, as it is already available in Portugal. Brachytherapy is the "implantation of radioactive seeds in the prostate gland" (not real seeds, very small metal rods). This is a method that is quick in terms of surgical time (a one hour session), produces very few complications, and which also usually ensures the quick recovery of the patient. The treatment costs between ten and 12 thousand Euros, and so far in the two weeks it has been available here, there has only been one patient.

Two Madeiran families went to Lisbon at the weekend to participate in the biggest picnic ever held in the world. 40,000 people turned up on Saturday at the €3 million event, which has crushed the previous record of just 8,000 people in Tenerife in 1999, and will now be entered into the Guinness Book of Records.

We are to have a new weekly sports newspaper next month, dedicated to Madeira sport. It will cost €0.30 and will start with a print run of 10,000 with an average of 24 pages. Diário subscribers will get it free until the end of this year.

‘Série Madeira Wants Games On Saturdays’. The new regional football league that will absorb most of Madeira’s teams wants to move the ‘big day’ from Sunday to Saturday.