The president of IL, Rui Rocha, this Monday accused António Costa of sacrificing Hugo Mendes, who had already been fired, “to try to alleviate his responsibilities” over TAP, an airline of “political banditry”, and demanded an explanation from the Prime Minister .
“What we see is indecent, it is proof that the PS is using public companies for the benefit of the party itself, which does not know how to distinguish between public administration and party management. We see TAP involved in PS internal wars and all this is unacceptable, indecent and António Costa has much more to explain than what he has explained so far”criticized Rui Rocha in statements to the Lusa agency.
According to the leader of the Liberal Initiative (IL), the fact that the Prime Minister in response to Lusa took the email Hugo Mendes sent to TAP’s executive chairman about the head of state very seriously and stated that he would have forced to be on the spot to resign is an attempt to hide “behind an already dismissed minister”.
“What has emerged during the hearings of the Commission of Inquiry is much deeper and much broader than what has resulted from the sacrifice of a dismissed Secretary of State,” he stressed, since “António Costa had promised the Portuguese a flagship” and what you see ” is a business of political villains”.
For Rui Rocha, the prime minister “has taken a long time to speak and what he’s showing now is that he’s not taking responsibility for anything else” as the president has been “hounded in the public eye for several days now.” .
Faced with this inability to control the media agenda, he has now attempted a diversionary tactic, sacrificing someone who had already been fired, but there is much more to explain and every day, every hour that passes without António Costa comes to explain everything. that happened in the TAP is another hour in which António Costa owes an explanation to the Portuguese,” he emphasized.
In addition to the mail asking to postpone a TAP trip in order to “please the president of the republic”, an explanation should also be given about the “secret meeting with members of ministries, PS deputies and advisers” the day before the hearing of the executive president of TAP, the president of IL.
“And another question is that there were two ministers in the government of António Costa – Fernando Medina and Pedro Nuno Santos – who asked TAP for clarification, knowing now that these clarifications were prepared with the collaboration of Hugo Mendes. Or Pedro Nuno Santos lied Fernando Medina, or Fernando Medina, also knew everything and was involved in all these ‘marosca’ and that is why António Costa cannot now sacrifice someone who has already been fired to try to ease his responsibilities,” he insisted.
António Costa told Lusa today that he “didn’t know” that email “and, had he known, he would have forced the minister [das Infraestruturas, Pedro Nuno Santos] to fire him [o então secretário de Estado]just in time”.
“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
