Socialist Party councillors on Lisbon City Council are demanding the resignation of Carris management, following the conclusions of the GPIAAF preliminary report on the Glória funicular tragedy which caused the death of 16 people last month.
In a statement, Lisbon’s socialist councillors consider the conclusions of the preliminary report to be “very serious.”
The report detected “unacceptable failures and negligence in a public facility under municipal responsibility” as well as highlighting a lack of training for employees and supervision of the work carried out by the company providing the service, says the statement.
According to the councillors, the findings even contradicts the version initially presented publicly by Carris, in which the public company claimed “all maintenance procedures had been followed”.
“Socialist councillors believe that Carris’ leadership is no longer fit to continue in office, given the contradictions and the seriousness of the known conclusions. If the chairman of the board of directors does not resign, it is up to the mayor of Lisbon to make that decision, assuming the political responsibility that falls to him as the company’s supervisor,” says the text, demanding “that due responsibility be assumed, without exceptions or cover-ups” – and that “the city council ensures full transparency in the investigation, implements all recommended corrective and security measures”, with reinforcement of the “internal and external control mechanisms of the municipal company, ensuring that similar situations do not occur again”.
“It is unacceptable that an accident with fatalities and injuries occurs on public property and that the consequences are limited to intermediate sanctions or mere blame-passing,” say the councillors.
The funicular crash took place in the early evening of September 3, causing 16 deaths and injuring over 20 people. The majority of those killed were foreigners.
GPIAAF’s preliminary report, released last night, did indeed detect failures and omissions in the elevator’s maintenance, highlighting a lack of employee training and supervision of work carried out by the company providing the service.
GPIAAF said, for example, that the inspections scheduled for the day of the accident “are recorded as having been carried out, although there is evidence that they were not carried out within the time period indicated on the corresponding record sheet”.
The office has also recommended that Carris does not reopen Lisbon’s other lifts and funiculars “without a reassessment by a specialised entity” – and that the Institute for Mobility and Transport implement an appropriate regulatory framework.
Source: LUSA
