The Institute of Mobility and Transport (IMT) guarantees that it complied with the public procurement law by choosing the best qualified proposal in the tender for the strategic environmental assessment of the future solution for the Lisbon airport. The president of the IMT was called to Parliament by Liberal Initiative to clarify doubts about possible conflicts of interest in the election of a consortium in which a Spanish company owned by the public company that manages the airports in Spain is present.
Eduardo Feio assured that all the conflicts of interest foreseen in the public contracting code were addressed and the situations identified in the preliminary report of the jury were analyzed, making it clear “that there was no conflict of interest, nor cause for exclusion from the consortium”. ”, He said this Tuesday. Ineco is a consulting company owned by Enaire, the manager of Spanish airports controlled by the Spanish State and is part of the Coba/Ineco consortium selected to study the best solution for the response of Lisbon airport, an infrastructure that as a hub competes with the airport from Madrid.
Environmental evaluation of the airport. The Government assesses possible conflicts of interest of the Spanish competitor
As the PSD deputy, Hugo Carneiro, recalled, it was the Infrastructure Minister himself who admitted the existence of a potential conflict of interest which, Pedro Nuno Santos then explained to the deputies, would be difficult to solve. However, in the Public Works and Economy commission, the president of the IMT clarified that this decision goes beyond the scope of the powers that he received and that they were limited to the launch of an international public tender that, according to Eduardo Feio, did not give rise to to no challenge from competitors despite the complexity and involvement of the nation’s largest law firms.
The contract for the award of the strategic environmental assessment has not yet been signed, confirmed Eduardo Feio, without clarifying, however, what is needed for the process to move forward. “There is a dimension of conflict of interest – the PSD deputy António Topa Gomes described a strategic and not legal conflict of interest – which is in another area than this (that of the IMT) and that is where work needs to be done”.
The president of the IMT also clarified that the last decision “is always the Government and not the IMT” who was given the mandate to carry out this procedure whose objective is to compare three solutions for the Montijo airport as a complementary airport to Portela. , Montijo as the main airport or the Alcochete Shooting Range as the only alternative solution.
In addition to opting for a consortium with a company linked to the Spanish State, Deputy Guimarães Pinto, from the Liberal Initiative, also questioned the hiring of a consultant by direct agreement, and for a value slightly below the limit to launch a public tender. The ASA consultancy was in charge of the specifications, but was only hired after the international public tender was called to choose the entity that would carry out the strategic environmental assessment.
“Why did they only hire the company to prepare the specifications after the tender was launched? And who in the Ministry of Infrastructure suggested this consultant?” he asked.
Eduardo Feio explained that, at the time of contracting, ASA was already working on the specifications that existed when the international public tender was launched. ASA’s qualifications and experience in this area were also questioned by Chega’s deputy, Filipe Melo.
Regarding the option of making an international public tender, instead of resorting to qualified public entities such as LNEC, which had already carried out the strategic environmental assessment that led to the choice of the Alcochete Shooting Range (although abandoned), the president of the IMT always said that this option goes beyond the mandate given to the institute. Likewise, he avoided answering questions about policy options related to the airport process.
The PS deputy, André Pinote Batista, considered that the actions of the Liberal Initiative, and the PSD “conditioned” by the IL, is the “mirror of what has been done in recent years. If the Portuguese want to understand why 17 solutions for the airport have already been studied, that is why: they always have problems with the solutions we find”. The socialist deputy also recalled that the PS was the only one that voted against the proposal to carry out a strategic environmental assessment to reopen a decision that had already been taken by the government of António Costa, then a minority, to carry out the complementary Montijo airport.
Source: Observadora
