Two senior executives from the Department of Administration and Information Technology of the Ministry of Health (Luís Goes Pinheiro and Manuel Fonseca); an assistant (Ana Monteiro) to the Deputy Minister, Ana Catarina Mendes; another in his care (Sónia Pereira); and a former deputy national director of the SEF, who left before the end of the service commission without public justification (José Moreira).
These are the five government choices integrate with terms of five yearsthe Board of Directors of the new Agency for Integration, Migration and Asylum (AIMA), which will replace the SEF in its administrative functions of granting residence visas and asylum to foreigners.
The names were announced on Monday, when there are about three months left before the extinction of the SEF and become their skills divided into seven different entities: the administrative one at APIMA and at the Institute of Registers and Notaries; the police in the internal security system, in the PJ, in the PSP, in the GNR and in the Tributary Authority.
Luis Goes Pinheirowho until about three months ago was chairman of the Shared Services board of the Ministry of Health, becomes the president of AIMA, an entity equivalent to a publicly traded company, a decision that has caused controversy.
Goes Pinheiro was also Deputy Secretary of State and Administrative Modernization (2018-2019), responsible for the Simplex programme. He graduated in Law and has worked in various government agencies, such as the General Secretariat of the Ministry of Interior and the Institute of Information Technology in Justice (ITIJ). His official curriculum does not include training, experience or position in the field of migration and asylum.
this omission causes strangeness to the parliamentary leader of the Left Bloc (Be the only party to follow the PS in the favorable mood to the diploma that prepared the extinction of the SEF in 2021.
“It is with strangeness that we see the choice of direction of AIMA. With so many possibilities in the universe of people who have knowledge of migration, asylum or inclusion policies, choosing someone without any experience in the field brings with it the biggest reservations”underlined to DN Pedro Filipe Soares.
Of the other parties contacted, PSD, IL and PCP, the latter have responded. the substitute Alma Rivera declined to comment on the profile of Goes Pinheiro, “of whom there is still no material to judge the new features”, but underlined that of discord of the communists if “business model opted for AIMA”, which they consider “inadequate and pointless”.
Ministry of Health loses two employees
To fill the positions of members of AIMA, he was recruited by the Ministry of Health, alongside Goes Pinheiro, his number two, Manuel Fonseca. With a degree in computer science, he was Director of Information Systems at the Ministry of Health and also worked at ITIJ.
On the part of Ana Catarina Mendes, they are transferred to AIMA (which is also under her care) Sonia Pereirathat was until this nomination High Commissioner for Migrationan entity that will be part of the new Agency, and Ana Monteiro, Deputy to the Cabinet of the Deputy Minister and parliamentary affairs, where, according to the official communiqué, he “coordinated the legislative process in the government area, focusing on the legislative package related to the establishment of AIMA”.
The fourth element is Jose MoreiraWhat he was deputy national director of the SEF in a very difficult time since the service, due to the resignation of the then national director, Luísa Maia Gonçalves and her two deputy national directors, in a breach of custody (at the time Constança Urbano de Sousa), due to the approval of amendments to the Aliens Actwhich they disagreed with and which, as confirmed in the PJ’s recent operation to combat immigrant trafficking, allowed the growth of networks to support illegal immigration to Portugal.
CRESAP approves it, but has not yet published any recommendations
José Moreira, a senior figure in Finance and Management in the public sector, arrived at the SEF appointed by the then Interior Minister, Eduardo Cabrita. Appointed in February 2018 for three years, with one year interruption of his service.
As DN found out at the time, he broke up with the then national director, Cristina Gatões (who resigned in late 2020 after and eight months after the death of Ihor Homeniuk at the airport’s SEF facilities, for which three inspectors were convicted) and the other deputy, José Barão, the former chief of staff of Cabrita.
José Moreira was responsible last year for preparing the opinion on the general state accounts at the audit department of the Court of Auditors (TdC). Prior to that, he was Director-General of Municipalities and an inspector at the Audit Department of the TdC.
According to the official notice from the office of Ana Catarina Mendes”The aptitude, technical ability, ability and professional experience of the Board of Directors of AIMA appear from the respective curriculum notes of each of the nominees”, pointing out that the appointment has been brought forward “after the Public Administration Recruitment and Selection Committee (CRESAP) was heard, which ruled in favor of the appointment of the said personalities”.
DN consulted the official CRESAP page and these opinions were not yet available, after asking this entity to make them available, which only happened at the end of this edition.
Source: DN
