The head of government spoke out loud about the case of the Minister of Infrastructure, João Galamba, and the incidents involving his former deputy, Frederico Pinheiro, classifying “what happened” as “unacceptable”.
In a conversation with RTP3, António Costa stated this Monday evening: “What happened is not allowed even as an exception”.
“It is of course not the norm nor the rule of operation of a government. What happened is something that is not permissible,” the government leader told the public television channel.
However, António Costa pointed out emphatically that he was not referring to the behavior of his minister, João Galamba. On the latter, he said, “it is legitimate for a minister to fire an employee in whom he has lost confidence”.
Incidentally, Costa even strengthened confidence in Galamba’s honesty in the TAP case: “It is very clear to me that the minister has not concealed nor intended to conceal any document from the parliamentary inquiry committee and has handed over the relevant documents,” he underlined.
Afterwards, he reiterated the position previously taken by his agency regarding the computer removed from the Ministry’s premises, which led to Galamba calling the SIS – Information and Security Service – to pick it up. “I think it is normal that if a computer with secret documents is stolen, there is a warning and that the authorities act accordingly,” said Costa.
And although the SIS is legally directly supervised by the Prime Minister, he reiterated what his office had already communicated to the newspaper Observador: it was not, “nor did it need to be informed” of the intervention of this service in the case .
“SIS acted in accordance with the alarm received and within the framework of its legal powers,” the head of government said, adding that the executive had “not issued any orders to SIS”.
As for João Galamba, Costa revealed that he had not yet spoken to his minister, not even by phone, and promised to do so in person on Tuesday morning.
“There are things that are not handled even abroad and are only handled in person,” he assured.
Source: DN
