FINES ISSUED by Lisbon Câmara parking control company EMEL, pertaining to new get tough regulations issued at the start of the year, are to be published shortly.
Since February, EMEL traffic wardens have been able to fine cars found double parked or parked on pavements.
But up until now, there hasn’t been a single report published by the company on the results of the new regulations and the quantity of fines issued and collected by EMEL agents acting under the authority and license of the Portuguese driving regulation authority, Direcção-Geral de Viação (DGV).
After a source at the President of Lisbon Câmara’s office said that a report on the amount of fines issued and collected had yet to be compiled, the Portuguese news agency Lusa tried, without success, to obtain answers from directors at EMEL, the municipal parking company presided over by Câmara member Marina Ferreira, former Câmara mobility officer under the executive of Carmona Rodrigues.
The balance of EMEL activities, according to another Câmara source, Marcos Perestrello, contacted by Lusa, “are at this very moment being analysed and presented for publication shortly.”
The executive officer for Public Spaces, Espaços Publicos, said that the report had yet to be submitted to the Câmara’s official accounts reviser, Revisor Oficial de Contas, and only then, when checked, can it be handed back to the Câmara for eventual publication.
EMEL’s new fiscal competencies arose following a revision of the company’s statutes by the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, Assembleia Municipal de Lisboa, in 2006 and changes in the Portuguese Highway Code, Código da Estrada, in 2005.
The latter gave local municipal authorities more power to control traffic problems such as speeding and parking in built up areas.
The Commandant of Lisbon Municipal Police, Lopes Rodrigues, said that the measures introduced since February 2007 “had failed to solve the city’s main traffic problems but had improved things somewhat”.
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