NovBaesuris will be closed, by order of the Court of Auditors (TC), due to "procedural and administrative irregularities" that were detected in thisthe municipal company of Castro Marim. According to the president of the Castromarinense Chamber, "the 38 employees of the company will be integrated into the services of the municipality."
The Castromarinense mayor explained to the Sul Informação that "there was a first report by the Court of Auditors pointing out possible irregularities, to which we responded".
Now, the same entity sent to the Chamber a new letter, which "imposed the closing of NovBaesuris". At issue are several irregularities, including the fact that, in addition to the municipal company, the last editions of Medieval Days had the organization Farcopia.
Francisco Amaral told our newspaper “to have a clear conscience”, defending that there was no overlapping of functions pointed out by the CT.
«A few years ago, Amadeu Chaves, the great mentor of Medieval Days, had to leave the direction of NovBaesuris, as he did not have a college degree. As the event cannot be done without it, we hired its services through the company Farcopia», he justified.
With the disappearance of NovBaesuris, the holding of the event “will not be compromised, as the employees will all continue to be linked to the Chamber”.
As for the other services provided by the company, namely in terms of cleaning and the provision of school meals, "they will be municipalized".
The mayor of Castro Marim defended, in statements to the Sul Informação, that the two companies – the municipal and the private – «did not have the same functions», but shows himself to be satisfied with the decision of the Court of Auditors, not least because «many municipal companies in the country and in the Algarve have already been ordered to close down».
As for possible fines to which he may be subject, as the maximum leader of the municipality, which can range from "from 2500 to hundreds of thousands of euros", he believes that he will not have to "pay anything", bearing in mind that "he was never against the opinions of the legal department and heads in these matters'.
"I am convinced that I will not have to pay anything, as I have not stolen anything from anyone," he declared.
The current mayor of Castro Marim recalled that, when he assumed the presidency of the Chamber, in 2013, "NovBaesuris already existed". Despite having caught "the train in progress", he decided to keep it.
In 2017, in the Municipal Elections, the social democrat Francisco Amaral was reappointed in office, but lost the majority in the executive position. Since then, there have been several wars between the two elected by the PSD and the opposition, consisting of two councilors from the PS and one from the Castro Marim Primeiro movement – the former mayor and former PSD activist José Estevens.
One of the struggles was, precisely, the presidency of this municipal company, which has been occupied, for about a year, by the socialist Célia Brito, “who kept the same way of operating”.
The appointment of another councilor was imposed by the opposition, which leads Francisco Amaral to be ironic when evaluating this outcome. «The PS spent years making denunciations and complaints regarding the closing of NovBaesuris. He ended up getting what he wanted at a time when he occupied the presidency, having now been a victim of that action», he said.
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