The Chamber of Gaia and its president Eduardo Vitor Rodríguez have been acquitted by the Court of Auditors (TdC) in several cases concerning the municipality’s accounts between 2016 and 2022, the municipality announced this Thursday.
According to a statement from the Chamber of Gaia, TdC notified the municipality of the approval of the 2016 accounts and the archiving of several processes concerning financial matters for the period 2016 to 2022.
According to a TdC document to which Lusa had access, the consultant judges decided to “approve this report regarding the management of 2016” and “approve the approval of the municipality of Vila Nova de Gaia’s management report for 2016.”
The document also mentions that the municipality and the president of the municipality, Eduardo Vitor Rodrigues (PS), were exonerated of the alleged illegality regarding the financial support of 18 thousand euros for the works in the Colégio de Gaia.
Following a complaint filed with the prosecutor’s office in 2019, evidence provided by the municipality to prosecutors led to the case being closed based on “a demonstration of evidentiary elements submitted by the municipality and verified by the prosecutor’s office.”
The claim was therefore found to be “completely unfounded, absolving the defendant/municipality and its elected representatives of the allegations raised and the plaintiff”, which also led to the prosecutor’s application to the TdC in 2021.
According to the document, while the 2017, 2018 and 2019 CLCs retain the aforementioned reserve from 2016, the 2020 CLC “no longer represents any reserve,” and the 2021–2023 CLCs “do not represent any reserve or emphasis.”
“The municipality complied with the principle of budgetary balance between 2015 and 2022,” because despite the fact that the TdC analyzed the 2016 accounts and exceeded the “total debt limit” that year, the consulting judges found that the law had been complied with.
It establishes that “if the total debt is exceeded, the municipality must reduce the excess amount in the following year by at least 10% until this limit is reached,” which is what happened at the end of 2017, as reported by Gaia. “We managed to turn the tide by starting to comply with the total debt limit” by 2022.
The Court of Auditors also noted that the municipality stopped defaulting on payments for the first time in 2016 and that from 2013 to 2016, during the first term of Socialist Eduardo Vitor Rodríguez as mayor of the municipality, the municipality paid off 29.8 million euros in debts from previous mandates.
The TdC also recommended that the municipality of Gaia, Porto district, request information “as soon as the process of settling the recommendation on the inflated value of assets, which is still awaiting a court decision, which will relate to the claim brought by the municipality against intellectual property – Infraestruturas de Portugal”, is completed.
The issue concerns the payment of funds related to the construction of VL9, in which the municipality demanded that IP be obliged to pay 7.9 million euros “for the land occupied within VL9, to the company José Miguel Irmão, Lda”.
In a statement from the municipality, Eduardo Vitor Rodriguez expressed “satisfaction with the just acquittal.”
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Sandra Hansen, a news website Author and Reporter for 24 News Reporters. I have over 7 years of experience in the journalism field, with an extensive background in politics and political science. My passion is to tell stories that are important to people around the globe and to engage readers with compelling content.