Jardim at Party Conference: 'strapped for cash'

I'm desperate for cash and having difficulty finding money to finish what's under way', said Jardim during a two hour speech delivered at his party conference yesterday. Earlier in the week the national union of pharmaceutical suppliers had announced they would refuse to continue supplying the Government if it did not pay off its €80 million debt. The President of the Government reacted angrily saying that he would not put up with blackmail. The Secretary of Finances quickly sallied to the rescue with a €5 million cheque.

During his conference speech Jardim also accused the Minister of Finance of being a criminal and declared that Madeira still lived under the yoke of Portuguese colonialism. The opposition parties in Madeira are getting nowhere, he claimed, because they only worried about playing the game of the colonialists and being 'Lisbon's lackeys'!