The PS in Lisbon City Council said this Thursday it was “totally calm and sure of the legality of all contracts” signed into previous mandates under socialist rule, following recent searches of the Urban Planning Department on suspicion of corruption.
“PS Lisboa is completely calm and sure of the legality of all contracts and procedures”, said the socialists in a written reply to the Lusa bureau, noting that the searches carried out on Tuesday at the municipal Urban Planning Department will be related to “contracts signed in 2015 and 2016, the news of which has been public since 2018”, as part of an investigation by the public newspaper.
TVI/CNN Portugal reported this on Wednesday evening the judicial police (PJ) conducted searches at the Lisbon City Council (CML) on Tuesday on “suspicions of corruption, economic participation in business and forgery” in an agreement for “services signed in 2015” by the then president of the municipality, Fernando Medina (PS), current finance minister.
Público recalls in Thursday’s edition that, as the newspaper reported in 2018, the contracting, between 2015 and 2016, of PS Joaquim Morão, former mayor of Idanha-a-Nova and Castelo Branco, for technical support in the management of municipal projects and works.
The Chamber of Lisbon confirmed on Wednesday that searches were carried out in the Urban Planning Department, but sent further clarifications to the judicial authorities.
“If there is a complaint, it is for the judicial authorities to investigate, as they do, and the CML must cooperate diligently in investigations, as it has always done,” said PS Lisboa in the note sent to Lusa.
The ongoing investigation, he added, will be related to “recruitment procedures, the processing of which is carried out by municipal services, and to which the mayor of the autarchy is a foreigner”.
“Fernando Medina has not taken any action in this context,” he assured.
The PS councilor in Lisbon’s current executive branch, which has four socialists among its 17 elected officials, said that “all works, without exception, were inspected and examined by the Court of Auditors and deserved its approval”.
The current mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas (PSD), this Thursday confirmed searches by the PJ on Tuesday in the premises of the municipality, which refer to “past mandates”, and announced that the “anti-corruption department” this month.
for the socialists”The announcement by Carlos Moedas, on Thursday, that he will establish an alleged anti-corruption office, when he had already assigned a portfolio and department with these functions, is a deplorable attempt at political exploitation.”
The PS accused the PSD/CDS-PP leadership, which rules without an absolute majority, of talking “a lot” about transparency and the fight against corruption, when the councilor responsible for that area, Joana Almeida (independently elected by the “Novos Tempos “) ” coalition – PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança), which also has the Urbanism portfolio, “was the same one who had the ‘honor’ to present a week ago the proposal for the licensing of a hotel owned by a front company by Isabel dos Santos”.
“If it is with this zeal that the portfolio and the department will work, now disguised as a cabinet, it is clear that it is only a cosmetic operation,” the council criticized, referring to the proposal to create a municipal department of transparency and to create a fight against corruption.
For its part, BE’s only council member, Beatriz Gomes Dias, asked that “everything be investigated and responsibilities established” in the context of the investigation.
The political association Cidadãos Por Lisboa, which has two councilors in the municipal council elected by the PS/Livre coalition, said that “any investigation by the authorities must receive the full support of the municipality, in the name of transparency”, in the hope that, “in due course”, there will be results of investigations “for full public clarification of the suspicions raised”.
Lusa questioned the other political forces that make up the municipal council, namely the PCP (two elected) and Livre (one elected), still awaiting comment.
According to TVI/CNN Portugal, it concerns “the violation of the rules for hiring a PS historian in Castelo Branco for the purpose of managing public works in the capital”.
“The Public Prosecution Service believes that the purpose of the scheme was to raise money for public works, with bribes from contractors, for the illegal financing of the PS, through the so-called blue bags,” TVI said.
Also according to the television station, the searches next to the municipality involved companies belonging to two businessmen from Castelo Branco, suspected of participating in the fundraising campaign.
“The targets, on suspicion of corruption, are Joaquim Morão, a former socialist and former mayor of Castelo Branco and Idanha-a-Nova, and his friend António Realinho, a businessman from the same part of the country, who has even served a prison sentence for fraud,” he said.
Lusa has contacted the Treasury Department and the PJ for further clarification on the matter, but so far it has not been possible to get a response.
Speaking to TVI, Fernando Medina said he was not aware of any investigation, adding only that “the recruitment procedures of the Lisbon City Council were instructed by the competent services for recruitment, in accordance with the applicable rules” .
Source: DN
