The governor of Banco de Portugal (BdP), Mário Centeno, said on Monday that “it is not true” that the government has acted behind the back of the banking regulator, contrary to what was defended in the book by his predecessor, Carlos Costa. .
“This is not true”replied Mário Centeno, when asked by journalist Anselmo Crespo whether the government was acting behind the back of the Bank of Portugal in the Banif case, at the conference marking the first anniversary of CNN Portugal in Lisbon.
Mário Centeno, who admitted that he had not read the whole book, but only the parts dealing with his role as finance minister, said he also found disappointing statements in the book by the former BdP governor, in which Carlos Costa described government interference in banking supervision.
‘I had a different idea of how to deal with the truth’be the governor of the BdP.
Questioned by journalists on his way out to specifically explain what is not true, Mário Centeno did not respond.
When asked if he was putting psychological pressure on Carlos Costa, Centeno asked the journalist to look at his face for five seconds. “There was no psychological pressure, was there?”Mário Centeno asked, a few seconds passed in silence.
When asked if he ever felt pressured in the performance of his duties as governor of the BdP, Mário Centeno replied: “I have never felt pressured to carry out my duties, never, not as a minister or as a governor”.
The governor of the BdP also reiterated that he “never” pressured anyone in the performance of his duties.
The prime minister and former governor Carlos Costa are at odds after Mário Centeno’s predecessor claimed to be the target of pressure from António Costa not to remove Isabel dos Santos from BIC.
The revelations are contained in the book “O Governador”, which is the result of a series of interviews by the Observer journalist Luís Rosa to Carlos Costa, who ran the Banco de Portugal between 2010 and 2020, and which has sparked controversy.
With a foreword by Christine Lagarde, President of the European Central Bank, the publication reveals hitherto unknown facts about the intervention of the ‘troika’, the Banco Espírito Santo case, the Banif resolution, tense relations with former Prime Minister José Sócrates, with the current, António Costa, and former Finance Minister Mário Centeno, as well as the wars with former banker Ricardo Salgado and the Espírito Santo family.
António Costa announced that he will sue the former governor, accusing him of writing a book of lies and misrepresentations about him and mounting a political operation to attack his character, after reaffirming that there was “a attempt by the government for political power to interfere with the Bank of Portugal”.
Source: DN
