The proposal, which must be submitted to the Lisbon City Council for approval, foresees a change in the organization of the municipality’s services, “extinguishing the Department of Quality Management and Auditing and creating the Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention and the Department of Auditing.
In a private meeting, the City Council discussed Carlos Moedas’ proposal for the creation of the Department of Transparency and Anti-Corruption, one of the electoral commitments of the coalition“New Times”, PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Alliance, in the local elections of September 2021, in order to “deepen transparency in the City Council of Lisbon.
The discussion and vote on the proposal was scheduled for last week, in a public meeting of the city council, but this did not happen, because the PCP pointed out that the documents were submitted after the legal deadlines, a point that the councilmen of the PS, BE, and Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition) followed, even though the postponement was decided due to the late hour.
The proposal aims to define 103 the maximum number of flexible organic units, with the addition of two divisions in relation to the current structure, namely the Prevention and Control Division and the Administrative Transparency and Accountability Division, integrated in the new Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention.
The creation of the Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention materializes the responsibilities provided for in the National Anti-Corruption Strategy 2020-2024, the National Anti-Corruption Mechanism, the General Regime for Corruption Prevention, and the general regime for the protection of whistleblowers that transposes European Union Directive 2019/1937.
“The implementation of these responsibilities, given their importance for the municipality of Lisbon, requires the creation of a new Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention, which will have two flexible organic units, the Division of Prevention and Control and the Division of Administrative Transparency and Accountability, which will respond to the legal obligations regarding the General Regime of Corruption Prevention (RGPC),” reads the document.
The proposal states that the current Department of Quality Management and Auditing has ensured some of the municipality’s responsibilities in terms of corruption prevention, which will now be ensured by the new Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention, as the organic unit responsible for implementing the GDPR, because “it is essential to create an organic unit to monitor, in an impartial manner, the municipal activity and to ensure an effective segregation between the functions of executive administration and supervision.
At the proposal of the PS council, the idea was added to the document that, “when the identification of a natural or legal person against whom there is a national or international warrant of arrest or seizure, or other similar judicial or tax decisions, results directly from the process or is public knowledge, and without prejudice to the exercise of other powers attributed to the Municipality of Lisbon, create the internal procedures that ensure that the competent judicial and/or tax authorities are made aware of these facts, through prior coordination with the Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention and with the Legal Department”.
The addition follows an application for a permit for a new hotel in Lisbon, which was eventually ruled out by Carlos Moedas after learning that the project was allegedly linked to Angolan businesswoman Isabel dos Santos, whose assets have been seized and who has an international arrest warrant for her extradition.
On the proposal of the councilors of Citizens for Lisbon (elected by the coalition PS / Libre), who consider that “more than political flag, transparency and anti-corruption must be a practice every day”, the approved document incorporated the suggestion to “ensure, through the Department of Transparency and Corruption Prevention and Department of Audit, the permanent information of ongoing processes to the Bureau of the Lisbon Municipal Assembly, without prejudice to its subsequent publication, through the transparency portal.
In a statement, the BE considered that the proposed change in the organic law “only derives from the law”, including a European directive, and said that “it is not enough” to ensure transparency and combat corruption.
On January 19, following searches by the Judiciary Police in the municipal department of Urbanism, the mayor of Lisbon announced that the “anti-corruption department” would be proposed later that month.
