The Prime Minister, at his own request, presented to the President of the Republic the proposal for the resignation of the Secretary of State for Defense, Marco Capitão Ferreira, and read a note from António Costa’s office released this Friday.
The note mentions that António Costa presented to the President of the Republic the proposal for the resignation of Marco Capitão Ferreira, “which was forwarded to him by the Minister of National Defense [Helena Carreiras]at his own request”.
Marco Capitão Ferreira had been Secretary of State for Defense with an absolute majority since the beginning of the current socialist government.
His resignation comes a day after it became known that Marco Capitão Ferreira had hired a ghost consultant when he ran a listed company.
The now retired Secretary of Defense hired José Miguel Fernandes, former manager of Alfeite, for defense industries holding company idD Portugal Defense, but the manager was never seen in the public companysaid Expresso.
Miguel Fernandes is supposed to be preparing a study on defense economics, but the report’s coordinator says he “didn’t write a single line” and accuses Captain Ferreira of demanding the name of the author be mentioned.
This study, which can be consulted on the idD website, was signed by two coordinators: Catarina Nunes and Ricardo Pinheiro Alves. But José Miguel Fernandes’ name appears as one of four who “contributed to the study”, along with Sílvia Santos, Roxanne Merenda and Marc Sebastian.
“The study titled ‘Walking into the Future’, published in December 2021, was coordinated by me and I can assure you that he did not write a single line. All he did was send me two comments on part of the study, by email, because I’ve never seen his face,” Ricardo Pinheiro Alves, former director of the Engineering Department of the Ministry of Economic Affairs and now vice-chairman of CDS’s strategic council, told the weekly.
When he was hired, José Miguel Fernandes had just resigned, “for personal reasons” as chairman of the board of Arsenal do Alfeite, a company in the idD universe.
Mário Capitão Ferreira was under political pressure, due to the lack of explanation of a 61 thousand euro advice given to the ministry in five days, after it had already been approved by a parliamentary hearing to provide clarification.
Source: DN
