According to the indictment of the Public Prosecutor’s Office (MP), to which Lusa had access, Matos Fernandes, who has not been named a defendant, will in 2020 – together with the Minister of Infrastructure and then the Secretary of State for Energy, João Galamba – – explained Resilient Group the integration of the companies REN, EDP and Galp in its green hydrogen project called Green Flamingo.
In July of that year, João Galamba, who is already a defendant in the case, finally removed the Resilient Group, arguing that he would identify with the H2 Sines consortium, based on REN, EDP and Galp. These companies were later joined by the Portuguese company Martifer and the Danish company Vestas, and the MP sees it as an accusation that Matos Fernandes collaborated after leaving the government with Copenhagen Infrastructures Partner, in which Vestas invested.
Prosecutors also indicated that the former government official was also hired as a consultant by Abreu Advogados, a legal consultancy firm in Copenhagen, and that he had contacts considered suspicious with Martifer’s chairman, Carlos Martins.
The name Matos Fernandes also seems to be linked to suspicions about the concession of lithium exploration in the Barroso mine, in the municipality of Boticas, to the Savannah company. According to prosecutors, the former minister – in joint action with João Galamba and Rui Oliveira Neves, then director of Galp (and one of the five arrested in the context of this investigation) – wrongfully denied the oil company’s participation in the stake. imposed. from Savannah Lithium.
Matos Fernandes’ activities are still under investigation in connection with the adoption of waste management legislation, as Abreu Advogados advises companies in this sector and the Association of Non-Hazardous Waste Management Companies (APERA), a sector integrated under its overview.
The MP also understands that the former minister will have damaged the fight against the drought in favor of a better result for the PS in the 2022 parliamentary elections. Matos Fernandes had been warned about the worsening of the drought on January 17 and only called the permanent assembly together. committee on the drought – with the aim of stopping energy production in five dams and ending the use of water for irrigation in the Bravura reservoir – on February 1, two days after the elections.
In addition to these matters, the indictment also points out that the former ruler imposed the names of the architects Inês Lobo and Alexandre Alves Costa on the jury of the competition for the construction of Porto’s new metro bridge over the Douro River, as if they had chosen by the Order of Architects. However, prosecutors admitted that they were still unaware of the motivation for this action and its results.
Tuesday’s MP operation was based on at least 42 searches and led to the arrest of five people: the Prime Minister’s chief of staff, Vítor Escária, the president of the Chamber of Sines, Nuno Mascarenhas, two directors of the Start Campus association, Afonso Salema and Rui Oliveira Neves, and lawyer Diogo Lacerda Machado, a friend of António Costa.
The Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, and the President of the Portuguese Environment Agency, Nuno Lacasta, were named as suspects.
This process focuses on the Montalegre and Boticas lithium exploration concessions; a hydrogen energy production project in Sines, and the construction of a ‘data center’ in the Industrial and Logistics Zone of Sines by the company Start Campus.
The Prime Minister, António Costa, who resigned on Tuesday, is the target of an independent investigation by the MP in an investigation opened at the Supreme Court of Justice after suspects put forward his name for intervening to delay procedures in the companies under investigation unblock. .
Source: DN
