There are large payments to companies without "evidence or traces" of the service they provided to the municipality, more than 800 thousand euros in trips, most of them to Cuba, an expense of almost one million euros due to an undue dismissal and even a " habit” of sending citizens to a private clinic at the expense of the public purse. There is also the guarantee from Álvaro Araújo, mayor of Vila Real de Santo António, that the responsibilities for some of the debts he inherited and which give him “insomnia” are to be determined.
A year after taking over the reins of the heavily indebted VRSA Chamber, after 16 years of PSD management, Álvaro Araújo presented yesterday, October 18, the results of an internal audit of the municipality's accounts, which, according to the PS mayor of Vilarreal, revealed that the financial situation is even more worrying than expected.
"These are situations that even make us lose sleep", he said this Monday, in the presentation of the audit result, an idea he repeated several times throughout the session - "it's what makes us wake up at 4 in the morning", "it's This is what makes us sleepy”.
“Our debt, at the moment, is at 160 million euros, while the liability – which is not quite the same thing as the debt – amounts to 182 million euros”, he revealed.
That the VRSA Chamber is bankrupt is nothing new. After all, this is one of the municipalities that is still in the middle of a process of financial rebalancing, after having resorted to the Municipal Support Fund (FAM).
The problem is that, says the mayor, the Municipal Adjustment Plan (PAM) was not fully complied with, so the problem is far from being resolved, since the previous executives, «even after resorting to the Support to the Local Economy, continued to increase the debt».
«We are talking about a debt that will be unpayable in the near future», warned Álvaro Araújo.
During the analysis that was carried out on the municipality's accounts, work coordinated by Rui Setúbal, a financial advisor hired by the socialist executive of VRSA, several situations were identified that were unclear or that caused strangeness.
“We will deliver all this documentation to the competent authorities. It is necessary to hold responsible those who are entitled", defended Álvaro Araújo, who guarantees, even so, that he is not engaged in "a witch hunt".
One of the cases identified is linked to the International Medical Center that the HPA Group operates in the Sports Complex, under a contract signed by the Chamber.
In addition to having a clause that stipulates that rent will only be paid "if there are positive results", which means that, "all in all, the municipality is receiving, on average, 257 euros per month" for the transfer of the building, "there are a debt of 700 thousand euros from the municipality to the HPA, because it was customary to send people who needed it there».
These people, namely citizens, were sent to the clinic “by someone from here in the Chamber, and then the municipality would assume the payment”.
Another situation that made ring the bells during the audit was the amount spent on travel, which amounted to 822 thousand euros.
A good part of this money, «about 430 thousand euros», was spent on trips to Cuba, a country with which the Vila Real de Santo António Chamber had a protocol, between 2007 and 2011, which allowed hundreds of citizens to benefit from surgeries ophthalmology in hospitals in that country.
Álvaro Araújo, although he is of the opinion that the same objective could have been achieved through partnerships carried out in Portugal, says it does not shock him that money has been spent «on the eye health of citizens».
However, he assured, for the trips associated with the protocol - that ended up motivating fines to the executive at the time led by Luís Gomes (PSD), by the Court of Auditors – “only” was spent “about 100 thousand euros”.
The remaining amount is divided into trips justified by the twinning between VRSA and the Cuban municipality of Playa («about 205 thousand euros») and other trips by Vilarreal delegations to the American island. “To give an example, a 14-day trip to Cuba for four people spent 27 euros,” he revealed.
«There are also records of trips to Madrid, Luanda, Stockholm and others, but we have not found evidence of what they went there to do», he added.
On the other hand, there is the situation where the president of the VRSA Chamber had already told the Sul Informação, of the million-dollar compensation to an employee who was fired and who won legal proceedings against the municipality in different instances.
In the end, the Chamber not only had to pay 500 thousand euros in compensation to the official in question, but was forced to reinstate him in the staff and pay expenses related to Caixa Geral de Aposentações and beyond, which made the account go up to close to a million euros.
Other situations, involving, in total, hundreds of thousands of euros, relate to contracts with companies that, apparently, did not bear fruit, despite having been paid.
There are several cases of expenditure “without evidence or evidence that the services were provided”.
It is certain that the auditors of the FAM «already delivered some of this documentation to the DCIAP of Évora, about two years ago».
The current municipal executive has now reinforced the complaint and wants the documents “to be analyzed more deeply”.
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