The Mayor of Lisbon, Carlos Moedas, opened an inquiry to the municipality’s General Secretariat, to investigate the procedures that led to the signing of the collaboration protocol with the Union of Commerce and Services Associations for Christmas lighting in the capital, which has remained in force since 2012. And they motivated Operation Lúmen, in which the Judiciary Police carried out searches in several local authorities and detained, among other people, the secretary general of the Lisbon Chamber, Alberto Laplaine Guimarães, on suspicion of corruption.
Taken this Thursday, the decision comes in the wake of the arrest of Laplaine Guimarães, only described as “a senior municipal official” in Carlos Moedas’ orderwith the municipal director of Human Resources being responsible for appointing an instructor, in conjunction with the Department of Transparency and Prevention of Corruption.
I don’t dispatch, Carlos Moedas argues that, without prejudice to the ongoing investigation process of the Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP), “it is important to determine whether the procedures that were followed and that led to the establishment of a contract with the Union of Commerce and Services Association, and the consequent conclusion of the protocols, suffer from any non-conformity and/or irregularity”.
On Tuesday, upon learning of the searches and arrest of Laplaine Guimarães, the mayor of Lisbon highlighted that the secretary general has worked for decades in the municipality, since the mandates of centrist Krus Abecassis. The searches by the Judiciary Police covered nine other municipalities, the company Castros Iluminações Festivas, based in Vila Nova de Gaia, which is one of the main installers of Christmas lights – and had an administrator and an employee detained -, and the União de Associações do Comércio e Serviços, whose president, Carla Salsinha, was also detained on Tuesday.
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