Luísa Salgueiro, president of the National Association of Portuguese Municipalities
The Matosinhos Chamber explains that it will publish meal invoices after October 12th, election day.
Between 2022 and 2024, the Matosinhos City Council spent more than 31 thousand euros on meals for President Luísa Salgueiro, many of them classified as “work meetings” or “working lunches”.
According to advances, in total, there were 146 mealswith an average of 214 euros per meeting, including a 780-euro lunch held on January 19, 2024 at the Valentim restaurant, which was supposedly as part of the municipality’s application to the Just Transition Fund. The magazine also states that it was unable to determine who participated or what was consumed at that lunch, nor in most of the other meals.
Although Matosinhos is considered “the most transparent municipality in the country”, the municipality did not make invoices available nor working capital maps, just a table with dates, values and restaurant names.
The expenditure on meals comes in a context in which the opposition had already raised suspicions about the president’s travel and expense management. The PSD of Matosinhos accused Luísa Salgueiro of having spent 253 thousand euros on travel and stays between 2023 and 2024, claiming that “she spends half the year abroad”. The mayor denied it, stating that the executive spent 43,743 euros on travelincluding trips to Rome, Dubai and South Korea.
The Matosinhos Chamber justified the lack of transparency surrounding meals with the “electoral context” and promised send invoices “after October 12th”the day of the local elections.
