The service committee of the current National Director of the PSP, Chief Superintendent Magina da Silva, will be renewed and this decision will be made official very soon, DN knows.
A government source stressed that the basis of this decision is the need to “maintain stability in the PSP’s governance structure when it is already being prepared to host one of the biggest events ever in Portugall, the World Youth Day, with the presence of Pope Francis, and the fact that these are considered the biggest security challenge the country has ever faced”.
Silva’s magic assumed office on January 29, 2020 and his tour of duty would end at the end of the week. His reappointment will take place in a critical time of recruitment for the PSPwith a historic level of candidates not even enough to fill vacancies.
He defended in an interview that he had handed over to the guardian a plan for the closure of many police stations in Lisbon, but shortly afterwards the interior minister came to say that such a measure would only be taken in consultation with the mayors. .
In these three years, as DN reported, the government has accumulated so many controversies and annoyances that by the middle of last year Clash, of course, with several top officials and in complete rupture with the unions.
“The National Director isolated himself at the height of his power, stopped listening to and accepting opinions other than his own, not realizing how much his leadership ruins PSP. He went into full autism. Their general staff doesn’t work, they don’t talk to each other. It totally broke the cohesion of the troops, not only between officers and bases, but between officers themselves. No one speaks up at command meetings because it’s not worth it. State your mind and quickly say “period!” and that means it’s not even worth arguing with. We have a barrel and gunpowder on the PSP and it is in such a form that no one knows how much more it can hold. If something doesn’t happen soon, there’s the risk of many officers taking early retirement. These 3 years have exposed a clear casting error,” a superintendent told DN in June 2022.
The president of the Union Association of Police Professionals, the union that protested the national director, summed up much of the sense of disappointment that prevailed.
“The PSP has structural problems that have become more acute in recent years. This national director raised good expectations, he was a man of the house, of the Special Police Unit (UEP), respected by most professionals. Despite having a lot of political responsibility through the current situation — the PSP has fewer and fewer candidatesthere is an increasing demand for work that is never paid for, the services are becoming increasingly complex, the strengthening of the SEF with cheap PSP police, the use and abuse of the legal permanent availability and the police as fodder for all the cannon — the truth is that it has not been able to influence the government. It does not have the political or administrative capacity to change the state of affairs”, noted Paulo Jorge Santos.
The then newcomer to the Ministry of the Interior, José Luís Carneiro, was seen by the PSP as a last hope to replace him and breathe new life into this vital security force protecting everyone and from whom so much disappointment and dissatisfaction happened.
However, after listening to several leaders, he showed no such intention and the reappointment of Magina da Silva had been expected for several months.
Magina da Silva holds a degree in police science from the Higher Institute of Police Science and Homeland Security (ISCPSI) and completed courses in special operations, police command and strategy, and national defense auditor.
As Commander of the Special Police Unit, between May 2008 and February 2012, he participated in the planning and direction of several complex and high-risk police operations that took place on national territory, in particular those related to the Ibero-American Summit (November 2009), the visit of Pope Benedict XVI (May 2010) and the holding of the NATO summit (November 2010).
Source: DN
