The PSD leader today opined that the prime minister’s response to TAP “isn’t a skill, it’s an escape from responsibility”, questioning whether António Costa only considers former secretary of state Hugo Mendes’s email extremely serious.
Luís Montenegro responded this morning via the social network Twitter to the news from the agency Lusa, which reported that the prime minister considers the email that former secretary of state Hugo Mendes sent to the executive president of TAP about the head of state and claims that he would be resigned at enforced locally.
“Do you just think this is very serious?? So a meeting between the CEO, PS and the government to prepare a hearing, a minister and former minister not telling the truth, the government preparing TAP’s responses, is all that normal??, he asked the leader of the PSD.
For Luís Montenegro, “this isn’t a skill, it’s an escape from responsibility”.
Do you just think this is really bad?? So having a meeting between the CEO, PS and Gov to prepare the audition, having a minister and former minister who are not honest, having the Gov prepare TAP’s responses, is this all normal?? This is not a skill, it is a evasion of responsibility. https://t.co/YMvJQuphOJ
– Luis Montenegro (@LMontenegroPSD) April 10, 2023
António Costa responded to the Lusa office before leaving for a two-day visit to South Korea after being questioned about the content of the former infrastructure secretary’s controversial email, which was made public in the parliamentary committee of inquiry at the board of TAP.
“Since I have not left yet, I answer this question about internal politics. Each institution has its time and this is the time for the Assembly of the Republic to find out the truth, the whole truth, as I said, hurts who hurts,” said the leader of the executive branch.
António Costa said he “didn’t know” that email “and if he had known he would have forced the minister [das Infraestruturas, Pedro Nuno Santos] to fire him on the spot”.
“It is very serious from the point of view of the institutional relationship with the President of the Republic and unacceptable in the relationship that the government must maintain with public companies,” he stressed.
On Tuesday, Liberal Initiative deputy Bernardo Blanco confronted Christine Ourmières-Widener at the parliamentary inquiry committee TAP Christine Ourmières-Widener in an email exchange with the then Secretary of State for Infrastructure, Hugo Mendes, about a possible date change of a flight with the head of state, Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa, as a passenger.
In that email he sent to TAP’s executive president, former Secretary of State for Infrastructure Hugo Mendes argued that it was important to maintain Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa’s political support as he was the government’s “key ally” , but that could turn out to be the “worst nightmare”.
The day after the hearing, the Presidency of the Republic stated in a written note that it had never contacted TAP or any member of the government to change a return flight from Mozambique in March 2022.
Source: DN
