The PSD on Monday urged the finance minister to “fully clarify” the appointment of the infrastructure minister’s wife to his ministry, after TVI reported that the designation was never published in Diário da República.
The program “Exclusivo”, on the TVI channel, reported today that Laura Abreu Cravo, wife of the current Minister of Infrastructure João Galamba, has been coordinating for a year the Financial Services Department of the Ministry of Finance, headed by Fernando Medina, although the appointment was never published in the Diário da República.
to TVI, the Treasury Department said Laura Abreu Cravo is an original employee of the Securities Market Commission (CMVM) and is with GPEARI [Gabinete de Planeamento, Estratégia, Avaliação e Relações Internacionais] under a public interest allocation agreement.
“Considering the experience and path of Laura Abreu Cravo and the need to better articulate GPEARI’s work in this area, she was invited to remain in the aforementioned office, where from March 2022 she will assume the duties of overseeing and participating in the European legislative process in the field of financial services, as well as coordination and representation of GPEARI’s participation in technical committees”, reads the response of Finance published on the television station’s website.
“We are not going to be calm with the absence of answers or with silence,” says PSD
For Social Democratic deputy Hugo Carneiro, this is “another shot at the government’s aircraft carrier” and the situation “must be fully clarified” by Fernando Medina, hoping that the finance minister will discuss this issue on Tuesday morning during his presence at the budget and finance committee in parliament.
“If he does not do it, we will look for him in parliament. If necessary, if we have to specifically call him to parliament, we will do that. It is also very characteristic of the PS and the government,” the social democrat emphasized in statements to the Lusa agency.
When asked whether, in the opinion of the PSD, the nomination should have been published in Diário da República, Hugo Carneiro stressed that the “news is very fresh” and that “in the light of what TVI presents, the facts seem [ser] pretty solid”.
“But we want to hear the government’s version. We will not tolerate silence. We want this to be clarified, either it is or it is not, and we will draw our conclusions later,” he stressed.
Hugo Carneiro stressed that if the facts are as presented by the TVI news, they are “very serious”.
“I hope the finance minister does not again resort to a phrase he likes to use, which is: I didn’t know,” he added.
For the Social Democratic deputy, this is a case involving the wife of another minister, who has been in office since March 2022, when Fernando Medina was already Minister of Finance and in the Ministry of Finance itself, and therefore “impossible to say who doesn’t know”.
“You have to make it clear whether the law requires it or not. (…) And if the law requires it, why has the publication in Diário da República not happened”, he insisted.
The Social Democrat also referred to the Ministry of Finance telling TVI that Laura Abreu Cravo “is a coordinator, but does not direct”.
“I don’t know if this is a semantic joke, but a person who is a coordinator must direct something, unless it is a position, well, fictional, phantom, that makes no sense. Therefore, it should also be clarified,” he added up to it.
Source: DN
