Faro GNR admit to being understaffed in face of tourist season

Faro Council have declared a lack of GNR staff, meaning they are unable to properly regulate traffic and ensure public order at beaches throughout this year’s tourist season

The council stated that there weren’t enough law enforcement officials to “order traffic flows or enforce order and peace whenever it is threatened”. On Tuesday of last week, Rogério Bacalhau, mayor of the municipality, asked the Government to “take steps at once to enable us to have more agents in our county, particularly in beach areas and rural areas.”

This appeal appeared in a letter sent last week to the Minister of Internal Affairs, Eduardo Cabrita, the content of which was made public by Faro Council itself.

The municipality reports the complaints which it has received from the population “are numerous and almost all justified” and that “there is no memory of such a bleak situation in the past. You do not see an agent in busy public hours, nor in the hours of greatest demand”.

In this way, Rogério Bacalhau called for “urgent action, in the name of the safety of our fellow citizens”, not only on the beaches, but also in peripheral areas, “with our elderly and rural populations, often alone and at the mercy of misfortune”.

The council took advantage of the letter to further criticize the Government. “The Minister decided to push forward the relocation of the GNR from the District Command to another county, and is solely responsible for the state of affairs. The GNR is currently unable to respond in all areas of its jurisdiction “

The mayor also drew attention to the need for the Council and the individual forces of the country to be heard from directly when the Government is setting up public security plans or changes in the future, “which once again did not happen at any time in preparing the plan for this summer.”, he concluded.