Arrive in Lisbon accuses the PSD and the PS of forming a “political center” to govern in the capital

“The suspicions disseminated and proliferated in the public space, with a certain banality, I fear that they will give strength to parties like Chega, and that is bad news for the country. It's not because Chega represents the end of corruption, it's not that, but because it's an undue and inconsistent use of this agenda,” Lisbon Vice Mayor Filipe Anacoreta said on Tuesday. Correia (CDS-PP), considering that the Chega party "is not so committed" to the fight against corruption.

Presenting the subject of the current debate, the municipal deputy of Chega Bruno Mascarenhas recalled his party's intervention on corruption in the municipality of Lisbon, in particular the request made in January 2022 for an external audit of the former executive, led by Fernando Medina (PS), and alerts the current mayor, Carlos Moedas (PSD), to compliance with the General Corruption Prevention Regime (RGPC).

Bruno Mascaren affirmed that, politically, compliance with the RGPC was done on the initiative of Chega, in which the executive of Carlos Moedas "had no other alternative" than to work in this direction.

“Chega, unlike all of you, parties represented in this assembly, was born and raised in the purity of values, in respect for taxpayers. At all times of our political and personal life, we guarantee impartiality, transparency and the defense of the Portuguese", explained the deputy, referring to that in these 49 years of democracy, the PSD and the PS have "governed very badly the country ".

The deputy for Chega accused the PSD and the PS of constituting “a political hub”, in which “this turnover and this alleged pact of governance in the capital make it difficult to truly fight against corruption”.

The deputy mayor of Lisbon referred to the "speech at Chega", assuring that the fight against corruption is "a great commitment" of this executive and that it goes beyond the advisers in the portfolio.

"It is in this effort, which must be cross-cutting, that we are working and that we hope that, really, quickly, Lisbon City Hall can also stop being, rightly or wrongly, the subject of news constant that raises doubts and that effectively citizens distance themselves from politics", underlined Anacoreta Correia.

The councilor for urban planning and transparency and the fight against corruption, Joana Almeida (elected independently by the “Novos Tempos” coalition – PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança), considered that 2022 was “a year full of achievements” in this area, in particular with the revision of the code of conduct and ethics, the creation of the reporting channel and the improvement of the transparency portal.

"There has been a rapid increase in the 'ranking' of transparency and prevention of corruption in all the indicators assessed", revealed Joana Almeida, arguing that this proves that the work is on the right track, in which the next steps are to review the risk prevention audit plan, review the internal control framework and prepare the audit plan for 2023.

The leader of the PSD municipal group, Luís Newton, noted that “corruption weighs on human nature and, with this, can affect everything that depends on it. This is why the one who has been condemned for having perverted a process for his own profit is as corrupt as those who, without any conviction, seek to derive moral or political dividends from it”.

"The message of victory over the misfortune of others is only the joy of those who remain standing in the mud, because no one can live from the degradation of values ​​and society, because that is also corruption" , said the Social Democrat, referring to the intervention of the municipal group Enough in this case as "a handful of nothing".

From the Liberal Initiative (IL), Miguel Ferreira da Silva warned that "the typical Manichaeism of the good guys and the bad guys only harms the fight against corruption" and defended that "the best political weapon against corruption is transparency", welcoming the decision of the socialist party Davide Amado to resign from the presidency of the 6th Commission for Human and Social Rights, Citizenship and Transparency and the Fight against Corruption, after being accused by the Public Ministry of crimes of economic participation in business and abuse of power.

The PS did not intervene in this debate, nor BE, Livre, PEV, PAN, Aliança and PPM, with the participation of PSD, IL, CDS-PP, PCP and MPT.

SSM // QV