Silves’ new mayor lifts the lid on the Council’s finances

The new mayor of Silves, Rosa Palma, said today that she may have to resort to an external audit of various aspects of the council’s fiscal past, including the disastrous Viga d'Ouro contract which left the council deeply indebted to the banks.

According Palma, who took office less than a month ago, the municipality is trying to renegotiate the Viga d’Ouro debt, but if the result is not conclusive the mayor says she will order an external audit.

Palma said the council is facing various court actions but could discuss only the Viga d'Ouro case where the council now owes the bank about €8 million.

"We hope there is openness on the part of banks to negotiate this debt," said a hopeful mayor.

The Viga d'Ouro court case was based on events between 2004 and 2006 when the municipality gave the eponymous company a substantial contract for sanitation construction work without the contract ever going to public tender, which was in clear breach of the rules.

Isabel Soares, then mayor of Silves and now happily running Aguas do Algarve, ended up defending the council’s blatant defiance of procedural rules and defending herself against accusations of abuse of power.

She and her two co-defendants, José Paulo de Sousa and Domingos Garcia, somehow managed to avoid prison or fines; Soares by blaming others, saying she ‘merely signed the documents’ that authorised payment,

“No mayor, not even in the smallest council in Portugal can be aware of everything. We must trust people in each department at the town hall to do their jobs correctly before documents come to us to be signed,” said, Soares shifting the blame onto her minions in the time-honoured manner.

The Viga d’Ouro management denied all the accusations and claimed it was owed €7 million for the construction works, payment having been suspended by the council in August 2006 due to the opening of an enquiry. This enquiry discovered that invoices for the work carried out by Viga D’Ouro between 2004 and 2006 were split into amounts of €4,987.98 each, so that the contract could be awarded directly without the need for public tender as each invoice was just below €5,000.

Viga d’Ouro factored the invoices and the banks later took the council to court for repayment.

This case forms just a part of the legacy of former mayor Isabel Soares.

Hopefully the new mayor also will look in depth into the financial events surrounding the funding of the Fábrica do Inglês in Silves, which housed the Cork Museum, and report back to her ratepayers.

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