Tender for Glória funicular maintenance “cancelled” in August over cost

Four tenders from companies competing to undertake the maintenance on Lisbon’s Glória Funicular which derailed on Wednesday early evening killing 16 passengers and injuring 24, five of whom are in a critical state, were cancelled because the estimates presented exceeded the public transport company Carris’ budget.

In the aftermath of the worst tragedy to have stuck Lisbon since the Great Chiado Fire of August 1988 which killed two and injured 72, and the Lisbon Restelo water slide amusement park disaster in July 1993 that saw the death of two children, unsettling details emerged yesterday that cost may have been put over safety.

According to the ECO Online business news source, in August the tender for the maintenance of the four lifts and funiculars was cancelled by Carris, the public transport company, because all of the estimates received were above the company’s budget.

According to the Vortal portal (which lists public tenders), the tender for maintaining the funiculars Glória and Graça, and the so-called ‘lifts’ of Lavra and Bica, opened on April 28 this year, and closed four months later “without success”.

A message on the portal reads: “This opportunity was cancelled on 14/08/2025 at 5:05 PM, and the official cancellation date is 01/09/2025 at 5:16 PM for the following reason: Considering that the bids submitted by the competitors are higher than the base price, the decision not to award Process No. 046/2025 was approved, and the decision to contract was revoked, pursuant to the provisions of Article 79(1)(b) of the CCP.”

The maintenance period stipulated in the tender was 36 months, i.e. three years, and had a base price, excluding VAT, of €1.9 million, says ECO.

In this year’s tender, competitors proposed amounts above the budget to carry out the work, which led to its formal cancellation five days ago – four days before the tragedy, in other words.

Carris president Pedro de Brito Bogas is understood to have told journalists at a press conference on Thursday that an external company has been responsible for maintaining the equipment in recent years and that these checks have been carried out. He identified the company as Main, which Público newspaper has also previously reported as being responsible for this activity.

The latest contract on this subject, signed in 2022 and renewable for up to three years, was concluded with MNTC – Serviços Técnicos de Engenharia, Lda, a company based in Monte da Caparica near Lisbon, for a value of €995,500, explains ECO. A monthly fee of €5,913.30 was stipulated for the Elevador da Glória alone. According to Expresso newspaper, Main Maintenance Engineering is the trade name of MNTC.

This company was once again interested in the contract, as it was one of two that requested additional clarification in this year’s tender, says ECO.

Yesterday evening, with the nation stunned by news of this tragedy and the rising death count, SIC quoted Carris as saying that a new contract had been in force since Monday, September 1, and that there had been “no interruption in maintenance services”.

SIC also reported that this contract (to which company is still unclear) was awarded by direct agreement, following the cancellation of the tender.

Focus will now be on discovering which company it is that has been responsible for the maintenance of the Glória funicular since Monday, and how much their direct contract cost.

As reported on Thursday morning, operations of the Graça funicular and the Lavra and Bica ‘lifts’ have been suspended, pending a technical inspection, so the new contract will effectively only have been active for three days.

Sources: ECO Online/Público/Essential Business/Portugal Resident

Photo: Chris Graeme