Portugal’s Arbitration Court has ordered the National Civil Protection Authority to pay Heliportugal more than €2.7 million for the maintenance and operation costs of Portugal's fire-fighting helicopters.
There were two separate decisions but both amounted to the same thing, the Civil Protection Authority has not been making contracted payments.
The first decision was in December 2015 when the Arbitration Tribunal told the National Civil Protection Authority to pay Heliportugal 1,735,837 due, without interest, as part of the contract involving specialist Kamov fire-fighting helicopters.
This decision related to lack of payment for maintenance and operation of six Kamov helicopters up to October 2014.
The second decision was in January this year when the Authority was told to pay Heliportugal €956,686 without interest, for the maintenance and operation of three light aircraft in the first quarter of 2014.
Heliportugal was responsible for the maintenance and operation of the Kamov helicopters until the first half of 2015 when the contract moved to Everjets, which in February 2015 won the public tender for the government contract.
The Ministry of Internal Affairs confirmed the decisions of the Court but has handed the bill to the Treasury.
Heliportugal also has sued for payment of €6.3 million in penalties as part of the ‘Kamov contract’ for the first half of 2015. This has yet to be decided on in court.
Heliportugal justifies this claim by saying the aircraft had to be paid for whether they were grounded or operable. The Ministry of Internal Affairs disagrees and claims that half of the fire-fighting fleet was not fit to fly and therefore no charges should have been incurred.
Two helicopters could not be used at all in 2015 yet the contract says they must be paid for as if they were operable.
Heliportugal has threatened enforcement action and the seizure of public assets from the Civil Protection Authority if it does not pay up.
The Authority says that nobody is allowed to take a charge over helicopters or any aircraft it is operating as fighting forest fires and search and rescue missions are "pertaining to the achievement of public purposes," and thus are protected by law.
These contracts are under scrutiny anyway and the Judicial Police already has searched the Civil protection Authority’s HQ “to obtain evidence relating to the procurement and maintenance of aircraft for fire-fighting.”
It seems that someone may yet again have been screwing the taxpayer, an all too common scenario when multi-million euros public tenders are up for grabs.
