The request was rejected with the positive votes of PSD, Chega and Liberal Initiative and against the PS in the parliamentary Defense Committee.
Discussing Chega’s initiative, deputy Pedro Pessanha said it was important to “understand the reasons why the minister would keep the Secretary General of the Ministry of Defense, João Ribeiro, in office after he was accused.”
For the PSD, deputy António Prôa – who recently took on the role of party coordinator in the Defense Commission – was in favor of the request “not so much from a punctual and episodic perspective, but because the current moment of this important sector of National Defense coincided with a series of cases that are all isolated, but which, taken as a whole, are worrying because of the image they convey.”
The Liberal Initiative’s parliamentary leader, Rodrigo Saraiva, believed that “there is currently an unfortunate atmosphere of distrust about many things happening in the Defense world” and favored “all opportunities given to the government to clarify, clarify and also bring more transparency.”
Socialist deputy Diogo Leão justified the “leadership” of the initiative, arguing that “the minister has done nothing different in recent months” and recalling that Helena Carreiras has already sat “more than once” in the Defense Committee to respond to “political issues”. surrounding processes in the field of Defense and business, which concern everyone.”
The Socialist stressed that the trials are being investigated “in the appropriate institutions, by the judicial authorities.”
Regarding João Ribeiro’s retention of functions at the Ministry of Defense, Diogo Leão emphasized that the Public Prosecutor’s Office “has not requested the preventive suspension of functions.”
“I think it is necessary to have confidence in the institutions and the PS faction does not think that these data that Chega has now provided to this committee, based on media sources, are relevant for us to approve a hearing ” to the Minister of Defense on the matter in question, he said.
The news that the Secretary General of the Ministry of National Defense, João Ribeiro, will continue to exercise his functions after being named a defendant in early August to be investigated in an independent trial into the ‘Perfect Storm’ was brought forward by Expresso , who wrote that João Ribeiro is suspected of abuse of power and computer fraud.
In August, the Public Prosecutor’s Office charged 73 suspects in the trial related to the award of works by the Directorate General of National Defense Resources (DGRDN), including former director Alberto Coelho, for passive corruption, money laundering, embezzlement and document forgery.
Source: DN
