Administrator of the municipal company who signed the contract was deputy to the current president of the AR. Gebalis says that the proposal that is 100 euros from the legal limit was the most competitive.
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▲José Pedro Aguiar-Branco was elected leader of the Assembly of the Republic on March 28
DIOGO VENTURA/OBSERVER
▲José Pedro Aguiar-Branco was elected leader of the Assembly of the Republic on March 28
DIOGO VENTURA/OBSERVER
José Pedro Aguiar-Branco was elected president of the Assembly of the Republic on March 27th. The following day, the municipal company Gebali signed a contract with his law firm not worth 74,900 euros — one hundred euros below the maximum threshold allowed in the modality in question, prior consultation. The hiring raises two potential problems: the Gebalis administrator who signed the contract had been Aguiar-Branco’s deputy in the Government (and has now moved on to the Ministry of Economy); and the municipal company refuses to tell the Observer who the other two entities consulted in the procedure were.
Despite these potential weaknesses in contracting, also already reported by Diário de Notícias and Público, the two parties tell the Observer that they do not see any legal or ethical impediment in the public contracting process completed after Aguiar-Branco took on his duties.
The contract was concluded at March 28, the day after the election of the new President of the Assembly of the Republic. The idea would be for José Pedro Aguiar-Branco e Associados – Sociedade de Advogados to provide “legal services for debt collection” by the municipal company that manages public housing in Lisbon. As for the coincidence of the date, an official source from the Presidency of the Assembly of the Republic guarantees that José Pedro Aguiar-Branco requested suspension of his participation in the company on March 22nd and that this came into effect on March 25th, as well as submitting his professional lawyer card.
The same source devalues the date on which the contract was signed, looking back at the contractual process: “The invitation was made on March 6th, the award was made on March 15th and the signature was scheduled by Gebalis for March 28th”. In other words: Aguiar-Branco still had not suspended activity and was already a deputy — but not president of the AR — when the contract was awarded to his company.
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The Gebalis calendar is different. The municipal company says that the internal process for acquiring these services “began at the end of 2023” and that the procedure “met all legal requirements set out in the Public Contracts Code”. Furthermore, he points out, “the value of the contract took into account the average values practiced in the market for the different pieces or procedural acts requested”, as well as the “36 months of validity of the contract”.
In relation to the defined contractual modality – prior consultation -, which implies the invitation to at least three entities distinct and unrelated to each other, the municipal company reaffirms that it complied with all the rules. Does not revealhowever, which the other two invited entities to submit a proposal. Furthermore: in the advertisement on the Base.gov website, the space referring to “competing entities” — which should be filled in with the names of those invited for prior consultation — only has the name of the Aguiar-Branco company.
The criterion for awarding the proposal was, according to Gebalis, “lower value for the three-year period that would be presented”. It turns out that the proposal chosen for having the lowest value — 74,900 euros — is just one hundred euros below the possible limit for contracting through prior consultation.
Here too, there are differences in versions. About the value, official source from the presidency of the Assembly of the Republic