The city council of Vila Nova de Gaia guaranteed this Friday that the purchase of tickets for Porto’s two games in the Champions League, a situation that led to charges by the prosecutor’s office, was “usual and legal.”
“The prosecutor’s office decided to make a decision to the city council of Gaya regarding the purchase of a ticket to two games of Porto in the Champions League in 2016 (season 2015/16). The purchase was regular and legal and recorded in the public domain. procurement portal, with all the transparency of the public procurement carried out, responding to the institutional invitations of two chairmen of the board, two presidents of firemen’s associations and two social institutions, all of which are directly or indirectly related to the PortoGaia Foundation,” he explained Lusa.
In a written response, the agency, headed by the socialist Eduardo Vitor Rodriguez, said that “the procurement is registered on the public procurement portal, while ensuring all the transparency of public procurement”, so it hopes that “in eight years and at the moment concrete”, this accusation will allow “to clarify the correctness of the decision and its legal and institutional basis.”
Recalling that the Gaia Chamber has been a member of the PortoGaia Foundation, the organization that manages the Olivala Internship Center, since 2002, with a share of 49%, the municipality justifies this by saying that “it is institutionally represented in this context.”
In its response to Lusa, the municipality also states that the invitations were institutional and addressed to representatives of municipal institutions.
“This is another case that arose as a result of an anonymous complaint and the President of the Chamber was never heard in the proceedings, and the Chamber does not pay for his travel, since he was a guest of the PortoGaia Foundation, being its President of the General Assembly,” he concludes.
On Thursday, the Porto Regional Prosecutor General’s Office (PGRP) announced that it had charged the mayor with malfeasance, embezzlement and falsification of documents in the process related to the recruitment of the public to attend Champions League games.
The published note added accusations against the vice-president and secretary of the presidium of the same body.
Jornal de Notícias reported that the targets of the indictment are the mayor of Vila Nova de Gaia, Eduardo Vitor Rodriguez, the former vice-president of the municipality of Patrocinho Azevedo, arrested and placed in preventive detention during Operation Babylon, as well as the secretary of the presidency of the Porto district council .
The mayor was accused twice, once in 2015 and again in 2016, of having determined, at the expense of the municipality, to carry out two public procurement procedures: one through a direct order and the other through a simplified agreement.
These amendments “allowed travel to be paid to third parties of their choosing (including the other two defendants) for both personal and recreational purposes, namely to attend Champions League matches at a football club,” the PGRP note can be read.
The indictment also states that the three defendants, in connection with the second trip, charged the municipality with food expenses for themselves and third parties, falsely claiming reimbursement for expenses “made on behalf of the municipality.”
As a result of this action, the state treasury suffered damage in excess of 15,800 euros, the prosecutor’s office also emphasized.
This charge comes after Eduardo Vitor Rodriguez was sentenced on November 14 to lose his mandate and pay a fine of 8,400 euros for the personal use of a municipal electric vehicle.
Eduardo Vitor Rodriguez, who has led this municipality of the Porto district since 2013, after his election from the PS, was convicted by the Vila Nova de Gaia court for the crime of embezzlement. The judge also sentenced the mayor’s wife for the same crime.
The decision of the prosecutor’s office states that the defendants “decided to use, as their own, an electric car purchased on a financial lease by a municipal enterprise under a direct agreement signed on October 13, 2017,” upon payment of a monthly rent” of 614 euros.
Eduardo Vitor Rodríguez is also a defendant in a trial investigating “issues of public employment and personnel,” he said in May after former chamber vice president Patrocinho Azevedo was arrested and placed in preventive detention, a measure of preventive detention. coercion that still persists – within the framework of Operation Babylon, where crimes related to the improper obtaining or offering of advantage, active and passive corruption, malfeasance and abuse of power committed by and against an official or person holding political office .
Author: Lusa
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Dave Martin, and I’m an experienced journalist working in the news industry. As a part of my work, I write for 24 News Reporters, covering mostly sports-related topics. With more than 5 years of experience as a journalist, I have written numerous articles on various topics to provide accurate information to readers.