Town hall || Portimão opened its all-in-one BUM – standing for Balcão Único Municipal – on Monday (October 13).
Despite the unfortunate abbreviation, the BUM is an office housing most of the local council’s services, making them easily accessible to the local population.
The BUM features “a multidisciplinary team that combines sympathy with professionalism” and will help people in a number of different areas, such as applying for licences, requesting meetings with local politicians, making suggestions or complaints, and, of course, for paying Portimão’s infamous taxes.
“The goal is to simplify the lives of citizens, who can handle their affairs quickly at a BUM without having to get stuck in lines,” says the council, clearly missing the funny side of its new resource.
Portimão’s BUM is located on Rua do Comércio in the town’s centre.
It is open Monday to Friday between 9am and 7pm, including lunch hours. The new facility is also expected to give a new lease of life to the once-popular shopping street.
Two other BUMs – to be known as ‘Espaços do Cidadão’ – will also open in Portimão later this year, to enable citizens handle as many as 80 pressing matters including driving licence renewals, address changes on ID Citizen Cards and other documentation issues.
With a region that already boasts an ARS (Administração Regional de Saúde – the regional health authority), the imagination boggles at what the authorities will come up with next.
