Castro Marim Council plans to close down its municipal services company, NovBaesuris, and will take over the employment of the 38 staff members affected.
The company has been forced to close after the Court of Auditors rejected the Council's 2012 efforts to rejig the accounts and operate within new regulations.
According to the Council’s president and vice-president, Francisco Amaral and Filomena Sintra, assuming the company’s functions and taking on the staff, is the "more responsible and sensible" way to resolve the Court of Auditors’ position.
The Councillors explained, one day before this proposal is to be debated by a Council dominated by opposition party members, that there was no alternative proposal from this opposition, so the company must be closed.
‘NovBaesuris - Empresa Municipal De Gestão E Reabilitação Urbana Em S A’ was created in 2009 as a limited company, owned by the Council, to carry out building work on council property. Latterly, the company was in charge of other Council areas including the provision of services to education, social action, culture, health and sport.
In 2012, new legislation covering these Council-owned companies came into force and many of them then were operating outside the legislation’s parameters.
Castro Marim Council tried to reclassify the company in 2012 but the Court of auditors was wise to this move and rejected the proposal.
In 2014, the Council was under a new leader, Francisco Amaral, who involved the General Inspectorate of Finance which audited the company and issued a report that arrived four years later.
However, the Court of Auditors did not accept the new way the company was operating and demanded that the Council make a decision about the future of the company.
The Council says there was no funny business, it’s just that the company could not operate under the new rules covering municipal companies, a view with which the opposition Councillors do not agree.
There is more to this situation than the Council is letting on. Reports after tomorrow’s Council meeting should clarify the arguments and, hopefully, a final decision will be made.
