The vice-mayor of São Paulo, Ricardo Mello Araújo of the PL party, told state prosecutors he warned the administration of mayor Ricardo Nunes, including the mayor himself, about a "public money bleed" in the city's street lighting contract. The statements are part of testimony he gave on Tuesday (25), according to Folha de S.Paulo.
Araújo was heard by prosecutors Karyna Mori and Silvio Antonio Marques in an inquiry into possible administrative improbity by current and former public officials in the handling of the contract. In his testimony, the vice-mayor called for an immediate cut in payments to the concessionaire and for the urgent resumption of the bidding process that originated the concession.
The bidding dispute
The contract stems from an international tender opened in 2015 for a public-private partnership. The company Ilumina SP was hired in 2018. At the center of the dispute is the exclusion of the Walks consortium, which offered to do the work for about R$ 5.6 billion over 20 years, roughly R$ 1.3 billion less than the winner, Folha reports. Ilumina SP denies it was favored and says the bidding issues have already been investigated and clarified.
Asked by the newspaper, the Nunes administration replied with a statement listing court decisions it says were complied with in sequence until the tender was reopened, as authorized by the courts in the middle of this year. City hall says the municipal regulator SP Regula reopened the bidding in June and that "any claim that the municipality is failing to comply with a final court order is mistaken". The administration rejects the idea that the current contract is irregular.
One day after Araújo's testimony, São Paulo's 14th Public Treasury Court gave city hall 15 days to prove it has taken measures to comply with a ruling on the case, according to G1. The decision, by judge Nathalia Christina Caputo Gomes, orders the resumption of the 2015 tender, the immediate reinstatement of the Walks consortium and the annulment of the administrative acts that excluded the group. The judge allowed for the possibility of a daily fine in case of non-compliance.
The inquiry continues at the Public and Social Patrimony Prosecutor's Office, which this month obtained an order freezing the assets of people under investigation, according to city hall's own statement. The next steps are the 15-day court deadline for city hall to prove compliance with the ruling and the continuation of testimony in the prosecutors' inquiry.