The Christmas lights scandal that sees four people still held in preventive custody (one of them among the most respected figures in Lisbon’s municipal hierarchy) “promises to draw in other local authorities”, while PJ police are said to be on the trail of at least €400,000 in bribe money that will give further clues as to the extent of people and entities involved.
Correio da Manhã tabloid (which broke the news on Tuesday) has given some of the details of this alleged scam which appears to be focused very much on Lisbon’s ‘top man at the town hall’ Alberto Laplaine Guimarães – an official with an almost 40-year record in public service. He even took a leave of absence from Lisbon years ago to serve on the staff of the then President Jorge Sampaio.
According to the paper, it will have been Laplaine Guimarães who ‘agreed everything’ with bosses of illumination company, Castros Iluminações Festivais of Vila Nova de Gaia – the country’s largest company in the sector.
“Meetings filmed and photographed” will serve now as “proof of the criminal scheme.
Everything was agreed”, apparently in “the most expensive restaurants”. The tenders (which Castros Iluminações won) were “a farce”, writes CM. “The council had agreed to hand everything to Carla Salsinha, who headed up UACS, the Union of Associations of Commerce and Services, who received almost €800,000 a year. It was left to her, always under the supervision of Lisbon’s secretary-general Laplaine Guimarães, to proceed with adjudication, via a public tender process, for Lisbon’s Christmas street lights.
“What the PJ claims is that there was no public tender process, nor was there a search for better prices. It was at the tables of the most expensive restaurants that everything was decided. Castros gained – returning around 5% of money involved to UACS.
“At least that was how it worked in Lisbon. It may have worked the same in other municipalities in the country”, says the paper, recalling that 10 are currently under the eyes of investigators, including Tavira in the Algarve, “but the scam could have been larger.
“For now, just in the period under investigation (roughly a year and a half), the PJ estimates that amounts of around €8 million are involved. This translates into around €400,000 in ‘bribe money’ which has not yet been traced. Information from the bank accounts of the suspects is still to come…”
This in many ways stands as ‘yet another case of institutional corruption’ – but it is the first time that this alleged kind of local authority scheme has been also linked to ‘criminal association’.
The four arrested earlier this week are due to hear whether they will make bail (and under what circumstances) later today.
The case is under the investigation of Porto PJ (even though it involves ‘one of the most important figures on the City Council of Lisbon).
Investigations got underway in ‘absolute secrecy’, adds CM, with information “kept under lock and key” so that no-one beyond investigators got wind of it.
Source: Correio da Manhã
