The Portuguese Court of Auditors (Tribunal de Contas or TdC) has revealed concerns over contracts awarded by the Western Lisbon Health Unit (ULS de Lisboa Ocidental), which includes the São Francisco Xavier Hospital. These contracts, dating from 2019, 2022, and 2023, were for “acquisition of document archive custody services costing 37,464.00 euros (2019) and 33,752.16 euros (2022 and 2023), plus VAT, to the same company, using an illegal direct adjustment procedure”.
The court highlighted that the ULS failed to carry out a preliminary consultation involving at least three entities, as required by the Public Procurement Code.
Although the Court considered the identified illegalities “are capable of determining financial responsibility sanctions,” it decided to waive this responsibility, which was assigned to the then-president and members of the board, headed by Dr. Rita Perez.
This decision exempts these officials from fines ranging between 2,550 euros and 18,600 euros.
“Regarding the fault of the accused officials (…), it follows from the nature of their roles that they must conduct themselves in compliance with the norms of the Public Procurement Code, without implying that by authorizing the completion of these illegal procedures, awarding and thus allowing contract execution, they acted with intent to engage in illegal conduct or even admitting as necessary or possible the illicit result of their conduct,” according to the TdC report.
However, the judges of the court pointed out that “it is certain that they did not act with the caution and level of diligence required given the positions they held at the time of the events”.
In their defense during the process, the hospital and the indicted board members claimed that directly awarding the contract to the company already responsible for file storage was considered a “less costly” procedure for public finances.
The final approved report was forwarded, as legally stipulated, to the Public Prosecutor’s Office, as well as to the Minister of Health, the president of the ULSLO board, and the respondents in the process.
The TdC report additionally recommends that ULSLO “comply with the legal regulations regarding public procurement, especially those relating to the observance of the legally adequate pre-contractual procedure, in accordance with the value (…) and only adopt procedures based on material criteria, when it presents justification that allows considered legal requirements to be met”.
The ULSLO was also obligated to pay the process fees amounting to 1,721.66 euros.
The process originated from a submission received by the TdC on March 15, 2023, concerning “possible irregularities related to the repeated and successive acquisition, from 2018 to 2022, of document archive custody services by the then Western Lisbon Hospital Center, now known as Western Lisbon Health Unit, to a single entity”.
