Lisbon Chamber approves Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy – Society

This Wednesday, the Lisbon City Council (CML) unanimously approved the Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy, which will be in force until 2026, within the scope of the municipality’s commitment to acting for “a more honest, transparent and trustworthy organization” .

“The Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy proposal emerged from a broad internal participatory process, which involved workers, leaders and elected officials, and externally, which included contributions from citizens and entities from the political, academic, social and business sectors”, refers to the document signed by the councilor for Transparency and Prevention of Corruption, Joana Almeida (independent elected by the “Novos Tempos” coalition – PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança).

After being made viable by the council, in a private meeting, the proposal must be submitted for approval to the Lisbon Municipal Assembly.

The document was subject to public consultation, for a period of 30 working days, which ran between December 22, 2023 and February 5, 2024, in which 26 submissions were received, “of which 17 were accepted and incorporated into the proposal”.

“The consideration of the contributions received resulted in the reformulation of the measure ‘Develop procedure manuals’ and the inclusion of a new measure ‘Implement tools to support the reinforcement of mechanisms for preventing risks of corruption and related infractions'”, says the Transparency councilor and Prevention of Corruption.

With the proposed Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy, “CML intends, through example, to make a commitment to act consistently and persistently for a more honest, transparent and trustworthy organization.”

The document is based on three axes — people, organization and city — and on three intervention pillars — prevention and control, participation and accountability — and is organized around nine objectives, including promoting a culture of ethics and integrity, increase transparent and collaborative public management practices, implement meritocracy mechanisms and create a culture of continuous improvement through planning, control and risk management.

Other objectives, according to the proposal, are to develop internal communication and knowledge management, facilitate access to information and reuse of data, provide fast and transparent services, communicate and be accountable in a clear and uniform way to citizens, and boost ethics in relationships with public and private organizations.

“Measures were associated with each strategic objective and the organic units responsible for its development and implementation were identified”, so that a culture of ethics, transparency, commitment and accountability is reinforced, helping to strengthen citizens’ trust in the institution , says the chamber.

According to the proposal, the Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy has an implementation period of three years, between 2023 and 2026.

The Transparency and Corruption Prevention Strategy began to be drawn up in May 2022, with the creation of a working group, under the coordination of councilor Joana Almeida’s office, to respond to legal obligations regarding the General Prevention and Corruption Regime (RGPC). In this context, in April 2023, the Department of Transparency and Prevention of Corruption was created.

The executive of the Lisbon Chamber is made up of 17 members, of which seven are elected from the Novos Tempos coalition (PSD/CDS-PP/MPT/PPM/Aliança) — which are the only ones with assigned responsibilities and govern without an absolute majority –, three from the PS, two from the PCP, three from Cidadãos Por Lisboa (elected by the PS/Livre coalition), one from Livre and one from BE.