Olhão has become the latest Algarve borough to hold an ‘Orçamento Participativo’, an initiative that allows local citizens to suggest and vote for their own projects.
The council has €400,000 to bring the projects to life, “the biggest sum out of all the boroughs in the Algarve” that have organised similar initiatives, says Olhão mayor António Pina.
The plan is to choose 15 citizen-led projects, three from each of the borough’s parishes (Olhão, Pechão, Quelfes, Montechoro and Fuseta), and then hold a final voting to decide which will be funded.
Citizens will be able to present their proposals at a series of meetings that will be held in the first half of September.
Pina says the idea of the OP is to “stimulate the involvement of citizens in the municipality’s management”.
“We realise that in recent years, there has been more of a distance between citizens and the people they elect, which has also led to higher abstention levels,” he adds.
