The Lisbon City Council, chaired by Social Democrat Carlos Moedas, has dismissed two municipal building inspectors who were convicted in court in October last year of corruption offenses.
The decision was taken unanimously on Wednesday at a private meeting of the executive, made up of 17 councillors, a source from the municipality told Lusa today.
In May 2022, the Polícia Judiciária announced the arrest of two employees of the Lisbon City Council’s Inspection Division and a citizen who owned a construction project underway in the city, on suspicion of corruption, having collected “relevant evidence” and seized “large sums” of money.
The municipality’s two building inspectors were placed in pre-trial detention at the time, while the businessman awaited the outcome of the investigation under a coercive measure prohibiting contact with other people involved in the case.
According to the proposals for the dismissal of the two inspectors approved on Wednesday at the executive meeting, to which Lusa had access, one of the workers was sentenced to a single five-year prison sentence, suspended for the same period, for committing six crimes of passive corruption and six crimes of passive corruption, in co-authorship.
“The employee solicited and accepted illicit advantages in exchange for acts or omissions contrary to the functional duties to which he was bound. The employee always acted freely, voluntarily and consciously, knowing and unable to ignore that all his actions were prohibited and punishable by law. He acted with the highest degree of intent – direct intent – and the degree of disciplinary gravity of the facts he committed was extremely serious,” reads the proposal for his dismissal, following the disciplinary proceedings initiated by the local authority.
As for the other official, he was sentenced to a single term of four years and nine months in prison, suspended for the same period, for six counts of passive corruption.
“Contrary to the requirements of their duties, the defendants decided, on a specific date that has not been determined, to approach property owners who were carrying out works without complying with the requirements of prior communication to the Lisbon City Council and to request monetary sums from them, in exchange for the absence of supervision of those works […]”, violating “the general duty to pursue the public interest, impartiality, zeal and loyalty”, the other proposal also reads.
Asked in May 2022 about the arrests on suspicion of corruption, the municipality said that “transparency and the fight against corruption are a central priority in the work that is carried out daily at Lisbon City Hall”.
Last month, the municipality unanimously approved the Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy, which will be in force until 2026, as part of the municipality’s commitment to act for “a more honest, transparent and trustworthy organization”.
“The proposal for the Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy emerged from a broad internal participatory process, involving employees, managers and elected officials, and an external one, which included contributions from citizens and entities from the political, academic, social and business sectors,” according to the approved document.
The document was subject to public consultation for a period of 30 working days, which ran from December 22, 2023 to February 5, 2024, in which 26 contributions were received, “of which 17 were accepted and incorporated into the proposal”.
Currently, the 17-member Lisbon City Council executive includes seven elected members of the “Novos Tempos” coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança) – who are the only ones with portfolios and who govern without an absolute majority – three from the PS, two from the PCP, three from Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition), one from Livre and one from BE.
