Made-up works? “Yes,” said Miguel Sousa, who was in charge of the government’s economic coordination from 1988 to 1992. “From 2000 it was so (…) [os do governo de Jardim] they did everything that was conceivable and unthinkable, the necessary and the unnecessary, which will never be necessary, which was never done and will never be done, it was a waste of financial resources that we did not have (…) they take 15 billion euros – 15 billion euros! -, and almost half was debt, and they spend it in 10 years! No one calculated, everyone authorized everything, no one was against it (…) And that was it, Madeira went bankrupt. And we still have that debt.”.
Sérgio Marques, former deputy, regional secretary, between 2015 and 2017, in Miguel Albuquerque’s first administration says that after 2000 “works started to be invented (…) Unnecessary works, that logic of development companies, all those idiotic investments that development companies made (…) the problem is that this social-democratic administration ends up having four or five economic groups to assert themselves , who eventually gained a lot of power: Sousa, Avelino, Pestana, Trindade and Trindade/Blandy. And especially two groups […]Luis Miguel [Sousa]with whom I worked for eight years, and Avelino [Farinha] I think they benefited most from regional governance”.
In fact, “When the government was reshuffled, when I left the government, there was a large part of the garden there. Jardim played his parts and portrayed Avelino [grupo AFA] and Sousa [grupo Sousa] in the field. O [Luís Miguel] Sousa manages to keep Eduardo Jesus away because Eduardo Jesus [secretário regional] had an agenda to renew the port. The Avelino [Farinha] he was not satisfied with my performance in public works, because I was the secretary of public works, and he always got used to having a secretary to serve him. That didn’t happen to me […]Avelino later manages to keep me away from public works. He didn’t want me to leave the government, he just wanted me to get out of public works.”
These statements, in particular those of Sérgio Marques, prompted a Commission of Inquiry in the Legislative Assembly of Madeira, set up at the request of the PS, which began on Tuesday to investigate “the regional government’s favoring of economic groups , by the President of the Regional Government and the Regional Secretaries and fabricated works, given the confession of former Regional Secretary Sérgio Marques, in statements to Diário de Notícias, likely to constitute the practice of various crimes”.
Luís Miguel Sousa, Chairman of the Board of Directors of the Sousa Group, assures that never “put pressure on anyone in the performance of his duties […] but in this case do not think that the statements of former deputy Sérgio Marques are unsuspected statements”.
“The role of victim is very easy,” emphasizes the businessman who remembers Sérgio Marques “had problems in the European Parliament because he asked for tickets to be refunded [de viagens] that he had not done (…) And now, suddenly, he is the most unpolluted person, he is the person who says that he left [do Governo Regional] pushed by a businessman (…) he was never asked if he was leaving because he wasn’t working, why didn’t he show up?”
Luís Miguel Sousa, questioned by PS and PCP deputies, who admitted to having been a member of Flama, a now extinct Madeira independence organization, and of the JSD, denied any responsibility for the ousting of Economy Minister Eduardo Jesus in 2017, when he came up with a resolution to revoke the Sousa Group’s license for port operations and promote a concession solution.
“Dr. Eduardo Jesus made a decision regarding the port operation, the Group responded as one responds in a state of law: we filed a lawsuit to overturn that decision,” he explains.
While explaining to the delegates how “the market works”, the businessman left a challenge: “Where and when was I given preference? I defy anyone (…) I have never bought or sold anything to the government, but from suspicion to suspicion they create ‘truths'”.
So says Avelino Farinha, leader of the AFA Group Sérgio Marques “has to justify what he said” and emphasized the negative idea that “here in Madeira a successful Madeiran is a thief”.
“We all have an ass hour in our lives and in this interview it was his time [de Sérgio Marques]he claimed.
The businessman believes that the statements of the former ruler “reveal much of the [sua] personality” because, he insists, “I’m surprised that with the friendship we had… I was never asked about this subject that bothered him so much”.
Avelino Farinha, who also refused any kind of pressure on the regional government, and who remembers that Sérgio Marques “understood nothing about works”, explained the criteria that “always” existed for works.
“In fact, it has always been like this since all the mandates of Alberto João Jardim: the first year after the election was to finish the works that still needed to be done, the second year was to make projects, the third year was to start the works and the fourth year was to get gas and inaugurate. It’s always been like that, “he explained.
Why did the Albuquerque government change its strategy and “go back to work”?
The entrepreneur understands that “perhaps, [o governo] realized the electoral disaster” caused by the “cessation of works”.
And he even explained, following his group’s example, that “when you move (…) you move with 3,000 and more people plus their families. It makes sense for the government to understand this sort of thing.”
Source: DN
