The Public Prosecutor's Office indictment, to which the Lusa agency had access today, refers to the 2009/2013 term of office, focusing on around two dozen direct adjustments for the acquisition of goods and services, which violated the rules of public procurement, carried out by the then socialist executive led by José Barbosa, and which will have unduly favoured eight companies in around 870 thousand euros.

The Public Prosecutor's Office maintains that, "through a plan previously devised" by the two mayors and the four senior technicians of the municipality at the time of the facts, the six defendants "agreed to resort to public procedures by direct adjustment to achieve undue public benefits for the companies".

The indictment states that the allegedly favoured companies were managed by the other six defendants, emphasising that they all "belonged to the same economic group".

The aim of having several companies was, according to the Public Prosecutor's Office, to give the idea that the direct adjustments were awarded to different companies, when in reality it was the same economic group, with fictitious competition.

Among the direct adjustments are the supply of furniture for the Amares Municipal Library, the provision of administrative modernisation or training services.

The Public Prosecutor's Office states that the 12 defendants "acted freely, voluntarily and consciously, in a combination of efforts and identity of purposes, dividing tasks among themselves, through a previously devised plan", agreed to benefit several companies, "which were part of the same [economic] entity, which were "unduly invited and awarded" contracts by direct adjustment.

According to the indictment of the Porto Regional Department of Investigation and Criminal Action (DIAP), "seeking to achieve illegitimate financial benefits for third parties", the two former mayors and the four municipal technicians, "within the scope of their functions and de facto powers, repeatedly and over a long period of time, acted with manifest and intense abuse of public office".

As for the six defendants who were managers of the companies that entered into the approximately 20 direct adjustments under investigation with the municipality of Amares, between July 2010 and October 2013, the Public Prosecutor's Office considers that they also violated their duties, as entrepreneurs, within the scope of public procurement.

"Having shown, with great intensity, repetition and longevity, contempt for those rules [of public procurement], not refraining in particular from using several companies and fictitious competitors, as well as splitting expenses, to divert the supervision and inspection that is the responsibility of the public authorities", stresses the indictment.

The Public Prosecutor's Office requests that the defendants also be ordered to return to the State the 870 thousand euros contracted in the approximately 20 direct adjustments in question.

For the former mayors and municipal technicians, the Public Prosecutor's Office also requests the accessory penalty of prohibition from exercising their duties, while for the six managers, the penalty of disqualification from activities is also requested.

Lusa tried to hear from the former mayor José Barbosa and the current mayor of Amares, Manuel Moreira, but so far it has not been possible.

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