While the Portuguese government dropped an icecold decree whereby with immediate effect all public spending intentions are to be frozen, causing a heavy rain of purchase orders pouring in from hospitals, schools, the militar and courts nationwide, the general population in Portugal finally has a meteorological promise of the type of enduring sunny warm wheather ahead that we would be used to at this time of year.
So we will have lots of things to talk about and to escape to this weekend.
For most of Portugal, long periods of cloudy grey and wet wheather just do not belong and people will find themselves out of place. For many Portuguese, it is however too familiar ground that a government ruling is reacted upon by waves of complaints against what is nearly (but not entirely)perceived as a dictatorial act by a government, generally by people who have not even read through the details of the decree. Theatrically panicking state employees show up in tv and radio interviews detailing lack of pens, toiletpaper, cleaning material and a whole variety of missing consumables that will serve to explain a fall in the quality of service to the general public in the immediate future and an paralisation of an entire country.
Give me a break.
For what it's worth, the far most item that commonly shows in surveys amongst foreign executives and managers working in Portugal on their views of Portuguese national colleagues is that decisions are frequently postponed and when eventually made, predominantly driven by emotion.
In this is where I find one explanation for the sudden expenditure freeze, or rather an announcement thereto (not to mention a range of other causes). In other words, it is about time that some active measures are taken instead of the contÃnuos appointment of projects and commissions studying feasibility plans to one day determine the amount of spending that might be avoidable, which eventually would also result in lack of paper but then at ATM's nationwide.
How about that wheather hm ?
No comments:
Post a Comment