Computer company, owner and technician of the Ferreira do Alentejo Chamber will answer for the crime of undue receipt of an advantage.
ANO-Sistemas de Informática, Lda., do Porto, Manuel Amorim, resident in Famalicão, managing partner of the company and Nuno Mourinho, computer engineer at Ferreira do Alentejo City Council, were accused by the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP) Évora, crimes of undue receipt of advantage.
At stake is a trip to Turkey, between 15 and 21 April 2015, which the company designated as “User Meeting-Istanbul 2015”, having sent invitations to mayors and other local government officials and municipal companies, in which it assumed the payment of the costs inherent to it in the global amount of 35.365 euros, proceeding with the sharing of this cost among the invited actors, the defendant company spent the amount of 885 euros.
The investigation involving Aníbal Costa, then Mayor of Ferreira do Alentejo and current Vice-President of the Regional Development and Coordination Commission (CCDR) do Alentejo, was filed, taking into account that the mayor refused ANO's invitation to make the trip. Aníbal Costa left the presidency of the autarchy following the elections of 2017, the one who did not re-apply, for having exhausted the term limit.
As JN reported in the edition of 6 October 2019, the process started after the denunciation of an independent movement from Penamacor at the DIAP of Coimbra, which later led to the withdrawal of certificates to investigate other cases, including the Ferreira do Alentejo municipality.
According to the DIAP prosecution order in Évora, that our newspaper had access to, “With the objective of captivating customers to join the meeting in Turkey”, Manuel Amorim included in the event plan two so-called “work meetings”, reserving the remaining available time “to activities of a playful nature, recreational and tourist, including a surprise dinner, a cruise on the Bosphorus and a visit to the Egyptian Bazaar ”. The date, according to DIAP, aimed at the defendant “to promote the business availability of these customers and encourage the execution of new contracts and the purchase of products”, justifies the accusation.
On 24 March 2015, Aníbal Costa sent an invitation addressed to the President of the Ferreira do Alentejo Chamber, who refused and for computer technician Nuno Mourinho, who, in spite of the autarchy, accepted the trip to Istanbul. In order to make the trip, the defendant asked the local authority services to grant a vacation period between 17 and 24 April, indicated as contact place your address in Serpa, where did you know not to find.
ANO and Manuel Amorim who are represented by lawyer Sílvio Cervan, asked for the opening of the investigation of the case to avoid the trial, but Judge Nélia Gonçalves of the Ferreira do Alentejo Court, did not accept the defendants' argument as “all the evidence of the prosecution was fully reproduced”, pronouncing the defendants for trial in proceedings with the intervention of the Collective Court. ANO and Nuno Mourinho answer for a crime of undue receipt of advantage, while the company manager is responsible for two crimes, one of which for having addressed the invitation to the Mayor of Ferreira do Alentejo, what would refuse him.
In the case of defendant Nuno Mourinho, the MP requested the application of the accessory penalty in case of a prison sentence: be superior to 3 year old, even with suspended sentence, ban on the exercise of public functions for a period to be established between 2 a 5 year old, if sentenced to a term of imprisonment that is suspended from the exercise of his function (expulsion from public service).
No period between 2007 and 2019, the Municipality and Ferreira do Alentejo acquired computer equipment and software from the defendant in the global amount of 210.470,15 euros.
Luis Pita Plum (Mayor of Ferreira do Alentejo)
“As soon as the first notification arrived at the Chamber, disciplinary proceedings were brought against the worker concerned, the municipality is awaiting a court decision to close the case and make a decision on the employee's future ”.
Teixeira Correia
(journalist)
