Portugal’s public prosecutor’s office is accusing Oeiras’ flamboyant mayor, Isaltino Morais, of embezzlement and abuse of power for the €150,000 spent by the municipality on 1,441 ‘working lunches’ in local restaurants, between the years 2017 and 2024.
Weekly news magazine Sábado first blew the whistle on this controversy of fine dining in 2023.
Its reporters claimed that a “massive amount of food was consumed” at these myriad lunchtime meetings, including lobster, crab, langoustine, sushi, oysters, suckling pig and tiger prawns – occasionally, “at the same time in different locations”.
Sábado wrote that of some 302 meals enjoyed by mayor Isaltino Morais, “there were three cases of lunches on the same day in different restaurants”.
These also involved “tobacco, wine, aphrodisiac saké, brandy and Moët & Chandon (champagne)”.
The furore led Oeiras mayor Isaltino Morais to ‘present and publish an itinerary of restaurants in the municipality’. He also told reporters that there “is not and never has been a practice of extravagant meals” on his watch. Everything that happened did so “within the law” with receipts requested for “accountancy control”.
But the town hall was searched by police and prosecutors, nonetheless – and now come the ‘charges’, which involve 22 other members of the municipality (councillors/department chiefs and sundry workers).
Lead prosecutor Alexandre Yvin Aleixo is calling for the loss of Morais’ mandate in the event of a conviction, writes Correio da Manhã today. He wants the same for the other 22 defendants – and he is pressing for the repayment of the €150,000: €70,000 by Morais on his own and the rest with the help of the other 22.
The focus of the investigation is that these meals may never have in fact taken place. Morais is suspected of “creating a plan to pay for meals using the working capital of his presidency” in which everyone will have benefitted.
Morais, something of a political Houdini – who returned to the town hall after a stint in jail for white collar crime – denies the accusations, and will no doubt ‘stand his ground’.
The problem with this is that Oeiras’ right-wing CHEGA councillors don’t want him to. They want him out – and have submitted a motion of censure against the ruling executive, arguing “loss of political legitimacy”.
CHEGA’s Francisco O’Neill, José Shirley and Filipa Lourinho claim the facts described in the prosecutor’s indictment are “absolutely incompatible with the exercise of public office.” Therefore, “severe political and institutional censure should be expressed toward the mayor of Oeiras and the other defendants for the alleged appropriation and abusive use of public funds, in other words, the money of families”, they say.
As to the tenet that people must be considered innocent until proven guilty, CHEGA’s group in Oeiras do not hold by it. “Regardless of the judicial outcome”, they believe there has been a breach of trust, and thus a de facto “loss of legitimacy”.
“While the existence of the principle of presumption of innocence must be respected, being legally unavoidable in the context of criminal law, it cannot be instrumentalised as a justification to dismiss political responsibility, which is governed by criteria of public ethics and the safeguarding of institutional trust,” says the group, insisting that if Isaltino Morais remains in office, it “weakens the regular functioning of the executive body, damaging the image and reputation of the municipality of Oeiras.”
According to information available on the Oeiras Municipal Assembly website, the next meeting of that body is scheduled for Tuesday next week at 3pm.
Oeiras Municipal council consists of 21 councillors elected by the Isaltino – Inovar Oeiras 25 (Inov25) movement, three from the PS (socialists), three from CHEGA, two from the Evoluir Oeiras coalition (centre-left), two from Iniciativa Liberal (IL), one from the CDU (communist coalition), and one from PAN (left-wing party). Additionally, the five parish council presidents elected by Inov25 are municipal councillors by inherent right.
