The party has submitted a proposal in Parliament today to establish a parliamentary inquiry commission announced on Sunday by André Ventura to investigate events from 2017 to the present.
The text proposes that Parliament evaluate “the entire process of managing the prevention and fighting of rural fires” and oversee the use of “public funds allocated for fighting rural fires, including contracts for leasing aerial means and the acquisition of equipment.”
Led by André Ventura, the party also seeks investigation into “the various businesses and economic interests that allegedly thrive on the perpetuation of rural fires, including but not limited to, the trade of burnt wood, real estate speculation, and the equipment industry.”
The proposal further aims to “clarify the details of the police operation Torre de Controlo,” related to suspicions of corruption and fraud involving public tenders for fighting rural fires, and “investigate potential cartel or corruption schemes in the rural firefighting sector.”
The Chega Parliamentary Group also advocates assessing the “strategic decisions that led Portugal to be the only Mediterranean country without its own aerial firefighting means, despite being the European country with the highest percentage of burnt area.”
“Two decades after 2003 and almost a decade after 2017, the country remains trapped in a cyclical pattern of devastation, unable to convert past catastrophe experiences into effective operational capacity. This persistent inefficiency has long raised suspicions about the existence of a real ‘fire business’ in Portugal, a set of economic interests that paradoxically benefit from the perpetuation of the problem they are supposed to solve,” Chega states in the text.
In the proposal for the establishment of a parliamentary inquiry commission, the party considers “it is in the business of aerial means that these suspicions take on more concrete and worrying contours.”
“Beyond the million-dollar aerial contracts, there are multiple suspicions about other businesses thriving under the shadow of rural fires. For decades, locals from the most affected regions, investigative journalists, and forestry specialists have denounced the existence of a chain of economic interests benefiting from the perpetuation of fire disasters,” Chega’s deputies indicate.
They cite examples such as the trade of burnt wood “sold at very low prices,” the alleged benefit of the cellulose and firefighting equipment industries, or real estate speculation.
On Sunday, Chega’s leader announced that the party would submit a request on the same day to establish an inquiry commission on firefighting and the businesses surrounding fires.
Today, the BE coordinator also announced a request for an inquiry commission focusing on the coordination and means of fighting the forest fires that occurred this summer.
