The Court docket of Auditors had already raised suspicions that the municipality had offered a variety of properties for a similar worth that it had purchased. Now, paperwork seen by CNN Portugal present the Chamber invested a number of thousand euros in works on one in all these plots earlier than promoting them underneath Covid legal guidelines
Cascais Metropolis Council offered a variety of properties to a Chinese language firm for the worth it had invested greater than €340,000 in a single a 12 months earlier. The contract was pushed by a direct adjustment whereas the particular public procurement regime as a result of Covid-19 pandemic was in drive.
This deal, finalized between the municipality led by Carlos Carreiras and the corporate Shining Pleasure in November 2021, noticed the sale of two warehouses and land for 1.75 million euros, precisely the identical worth that the municipality pays in 2020 had property.
It’s sure that one in all these plots, a warehouse on Rua Fernão Lopes, was the topic of transformation works in June 2020, shortly after it was bought by the Chamber, with the intention of serving to the inhabitants battle Covid-19 19 At the moment, a direct match of 342,579.87 euros was made to the corporate Briticasa – Sociedade de Construções, Lda, a development firm from Leiria that has gained greater than 4 million contracts with the municipality within the final 10 years.
Exterior view of the warehouse offered to the ShiningJoy firm
The cash was paid to the development firm at a time when a sequence of legal guidelines had already come into drive which, as a result of pandemic, meant that these kind of high-value jobs may very well be carried out by direct settlement and with out prior scrutiny by the Court docket of Auditors.
An official supply of the Câmara de Cascais, contacted by CNN Portugal, denies that the municipality has misplaced cash on this deal, claiming that “the investments made within the manufacturing unit have been recovered when the machines put in within the warehouse have been offered by the identical Chinese language firm and “no actual property “.
The cope with the Chinese language firm Shining Pleasure, which was one of many primary suppliers of masks in Cascais and whose merchandise have been withdrawn from the market by order of Infarmed on the finish of 2021, was questioned by the Court docket of Auditors for lack of transparency. And as reported by the Público newspaper, the sale of the machines to which the municipality refers to CNN Portugal is the origin of this audit carried out by the TdC.
As a result of when the 2 machines they owned have been offered to the corporate, for a consideration in sort of 6.5 million masks, it was additionally famous that the deal would solely be fulfilled if the municipality offered the properties at a lower cost of prices.
Nonetheless, when the sale of the properties was finalized in February 2021, the order to transform the warehouse was nonetheless ongoing with the intention of integrating the group’s efforts within the battle in opposition to Covid-19. The Municipality ensures to CNN Portugal that the contract for the conversion of this warehouse was by no means meant to be offered to the Shining Pleasure firm and emphasizes that the negotiations had no influence on the contract that ended, based on the BASE platform , in July from 2021.
“It is senseless to promote at value worth after public cash has been used for investments”
The conversion contract for this warehouse on Rua Fernão Lopes was awarded to the corporate from Leiria Briticasa, which on the public degree works nearly completely with the Municipality of Cascais. Of the 31 contracts listed on the fundamental portal, 26 have been signed with the Municipality of Carlos Carreiras, producing a complete revenue of 4,269,473.37 euros.
Talking to CNN Portugal, the Câmara de Cascais explains that the corporate was chosen after “preliminary consultations with a number of corporations”, with the corporate Leiria “providing one of the best circumstances”.
For João Massano, President of the Lisbon Regional Council of the Portuguese Bar Affiliation, it could be “expectable” that the municipality would have gained some added worth from the property offered because it was the goal of public funding. “Beneath these circumstances, a personal particular person would solely promote if he was in monetary difficulties,” he says.
Massano additionally notes that “it makes no moral sense to purchase a property and promote it at value after public cash has been used to put money into it.” The President of the Regional Council of the Lisbon Bar Affiliation additionally mentions that the distinctive interval for the foundations imposed on public procurement through the pandemic has led to “utilizing this management aid to do enterprise that might be unimaginable at some other time are”. “There are at all times those that take inappropriate benefit of the disaster,” he explains.
The Court docket of Auditors itself, following the evaluation obtained from Jornal Público, thought-about that this transaction was near the pursuits of the Shining Pleasure firm, for the reason that fee was made “in type by supply of the products it manufactured” and the “future switch of the properties ” takes place “with out competitors and at value worth”.
In line with a report by the Court docket of Auditors, which analyzed public procurement by native governments between March 2020 and March 2021, the contract carried out on the manufacturing unit, now owned by the Shining Pleasure firm, was the fourth most costly contract awarded by native authorities corporations has been signed worldwide nation.
By the way, the identical investigation carried out by the Court docket of Auditors revealed that Cascais Próxima, the general public firm accountable for the conversion of this warehouse, was accountable for awarding greater than half the worth of all contracts awarded to municipal corporations within the nation.
General, Cascais Próxima was accountable for orders value 2.9 million euros through the interval analyzed by TdC. The court docket put this calculation into perspective, since municipal corporations spent a complete of 5.8 million euros nationwide throughout this era.