Iberdrola denies connection between donation and contracts with Câmara de Lisboa

A Iberdrola today “categorically” rejected any association between a donation for a lighting project in the city of Lisbon and electricity supply contracts awarded by the municipality to the company, highlighting that the entities involved are independent.

According to a report from the magazine Saturday, the Lisbon City Council received, at the end of 2023, a donation of more than EUR 150 thousand from the Iberdrola Spain Foundation and awarded to Iberdrola, since 2022, electricity supply contracts of almost 50 million, which led BE to ask for clarifications from President Carlos Coins.

In a note, Iberdrola rejected the association between the donation and the contracts, highlighting that the entities involved are different: in the case of the donation it is the Iberdrola Spain Foundation, a private non-profit entity, with its own legal personality, management autonomy and own government bodies, and the award of the contracts was to Iberdrola Clients Portugal.

The donation served as a lighting project for the Paços do Conselho, within the framework of the Foundation's Illumination Program, with the aim of valuing the historical and cultural heritage through efficient and sustainable lighting solutions, he stressed.

In the note, Iberdrola “rejects categorically any association” between the two situations and expresses “its deep indignation at the possibility of questioning the rigor, transparency and integrity of its action”.

According to Saturday, Iberdrola obtained six awards from the Lisbon City Council with a global value of around EUR 49.9 million, since 2022, i.e. since Carlos Coins (PSD) began to preside over the municipality.

Before, in the mandate of Fernando Medina (PS), there had been only one award to the Spanish company of about EUR 2.7 million in 2020, according to Saturday.

The journalistic investigation also points out that among the awards identified is a contract of about 34 million euros, concluded in December 2023, approximately one month after the signing of the collaboration agreement between the municipality and the Iberdrola Foundation Spain for the execution of the architectural lighting project of the Paços do Conselho.

The donation of the Spanish Foundation amounted to EUR 156,400 (EUR 69,000 for lighting equipment and EUR 87,400 for installation, control and testing).

In the news it is advanced that the contracts signed since 2022 had as scope the supply of energy to the schools of the city, except one of them, in the amount of about 1.2 million, which resulted from a direct adjustment to “supply of electricity to municipal facilities” for only three months, justified by the CML with “imperious urgency reasons resulting from unpredictable events”.

According to Saturday, the “opposition did not know the subject”, since the “donation was never the council meeting”.

On Wednesday, BE in Lisbon asked the mayor for clarification on donation and contracts.

The Block asks if there were previous legal opinions regarding the acceptance of the donation, how many contracts were concluded between the municipality and companies of the Iberdrola group since October 2021, which companies submitted proposals in the tenders won by Iberdrola since 2022 and what were the award criteria used in each procedure.

The BE Lisbon also questioned Carlos Coins why the donation agreement of the Iberdrola Foundation, concluded between the two entities in November 2023, was only submitted to ratification by the City Council on Wednesday, through a proposal included in the agenda of the council meeting, what Saturday says happened after questions sent to the CML, for which there was no answer.

With regard to the direct adjustment of around 1.2 million, BE questioned “what exactly were the unpredictable events that supported the application of the envisaged exception” in the Public Procurement Code.

According to the CML Rules of Procedure, written requests to the mayor on matters of public interest must be answered within 30 days.