Letter from the Algarve: May '09
There has
been aproar here about a new law demanding we fill in yet more forms in
this country besotted with forms. This time they want us to register
our water supplies and sewage units.
So for twenty years I and all the other UK and German tax payers have
been sending funds via the EU regeneration schemes to Portugal so the
government can do all those things they failed to do for the previous
hundred years. And when I get here and apply for planning consent to
build a house I have to wait five months for that consent while it
supposedly goes through all kinds of bureaucratic nonsense, including
ten sets of plans for various government bodies, one being the local
water board, together with a special form that went to some other bunch
of pen pushers in Faro, who spent three months deciding that my
perfectly legal septic tank plans should be changed so they no longer
complied with the rules.
I also pay rates on the property, and was forced to donate land to the
camara so that mains water pipes could be laid. The pipes were laid
three or four years ago but I still have no water. I dont know who
absconded with the tax payers' funds that were set aside for the
delivery of that water, but the fact of the matter is, I have paid for
that water twice, and yet I still have to pay to have water delivered.
I could take this matter up with the European Commission but I have a
life to lead. But now apparently I must fill in another form (on top of
the ten I originally filled in -- oh, sorry, eleven, I forgot that
extra one for Faro) to tell the water board I have a septic tank, or I
get fined €25,000.
Three simple questions. Why do I have to fill in a form about my water
supply when I have paid for it several times but dont actually have it?
Why do I have to fill in a form about my septic tank when I have
already sent off eleven forms with those details clearly marked?
And how many times could I drive while drunk, and how many people could
I injure when I plough into a queue at a bus stop before my fines would
reach €25,000? It would be interesting to know how many lives equal a
government form.
We have just celebrated some sort of revolution. Sitting here, I am
wondering, if that revolution was really successful, why it is that I
am living in a country where the government steals from its people,
reneges on promises, and bullies us in such an outrageous manner?
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