The Minister of Finance assured this Thursday 20 that the government has no legal opinion to support the resignation of the former CEO of TAP, Christine Ourmières-Windener, and of the chairman, Manuel Beja.
“The reasons that led to the decisions to dismiss the chairman of the board of directors and the executive chairman are very clear and are those that follow from the conclusions of the report of the Inspectorate General of Finance. There is no additional advice and not right,” Fernando Medina testified in the Budget and Finance Committee, where he will be heard this afternoon.
The minister reiterated the analysis of the IGF, known on March 6, and agreed that “anyone who wrongfully pays someone €500,000 within a public company is illegal”.
This is how Medina responds to the controversy that arose yesterday after the refusal of the Ministries of Finance and Infrastructure to give to the Parliamentary Commission of Inquiry into the Political Custody of the Management of TAP (CPI) the legal basis supporting the dismissal of Beja and the French manager.
In response to the PSD’s request, the government used the temporal argument for not sending the requested documentation, arguing that this refers to “post-events” to the composition of the CPI as it “has a time horizon of 2020 and 2022 and that the respective redundancies took place in 2023”.
A day later, the position of the Minister of Finance is different, assuming that there is no legal advice and that the dismissals are based on the conclusions of the already known report. The government official also stated that “the provision of information to the CPI will never be a problem”.
“We are going to evaluate what is the request of the committee, which has not yet reached us, and after that request the elements will be sent,” he assured, noting that the government has had “total and absolute diligence” in providing all documents used by CPI since its inception.
The CPI, which met during the emergency afternoon yesterday, defined that it will again urge the government to send the advisory in question, giving the executive branch 10 days to respond.
conflicting arguments
The government will now have to clarify to the CPI whether or not there appears to be a risk of committing a crime of disobedience. The controversy, which erupted yesterday, is shrouded in contradictory arguments. If the timeline emerged as the first argument for not disclosing the opinion supporting the resignation of the former TAP executives, “safeguarding the public interest” followed on the list. A day later, Medina says that there is no opinion after all.
It is recalled that yesterday the office of Deputy Minister of Parliamentary Affairs, Ana Catarina Mendes, assured in a note to Lusa that the disclosure of the legal opinion “would pose risks to the legal defense of the state’s point of view” and “for that reason, the government’s response to the CPI is aimed at protecting the public interest,” he justified, without ever mentioning the lack of the document, as Medina said.
The Prime Minister, António Costa, added on the same day that the government “has fulfilled its duty to explain to the public opinion the reasons for the decisions taken”.
“The parliamentary commissions of inquiry are parliamentary commissions, they take place in parliament and the Assembly of the Republic is a sovereign body that we must respect. The government does not comment on parliament’s actions, the government reacts to parliament politically”, he said.
Rute Simão is a journalist for Dinheiro Vivo
Source: DN
