The Minister of Infrastructure understands that he “has all the prerequisites to be in this government” and guarantees that the ministry he heads “has never wanted to hide notes from the CPI”. In a press conference, João Galamba confirmed that it was the former deputy, Frederico Pinheiro, who never wanted to send the said notes, which he did only at the insistence of the ministry.
“The facts show that these are not contradictory versions. […] The facts are clear, I would even say crystalline, and they show that the efforts of all elements of my team, in the repeated insistence to collect everything, are saturated,” he added, after describing a chronology of events had made.
Finally, João Galamba explained that a postponement had been requested from the CPI for the delivery of notes from the secret meeting with the former CEO of TAP, precisely in order to deliver them.
The minister explained that after hearing the then CEO of TAP, his chief of staff called a meeting on April 5 to collect all information about the meeting between the PS, the government and the former CEO of TAP. At that meeting, he said, all cabinet members present were asked to give what they had.
“None of them gave any indication of the existence of documentary elements, nor that there was any question-and-answer combination,” he said, guaranteeing there were multiple witnesses to the same thing. He then added that the former deputy did not report until April 24 that he had notes from that meeting and had been asked to hand them over.
After “repeated requests” for him to deliver the banknotes, Frederico Pinheiro never did, according to Galamba, forcing the ministry to ask the CPI to postpone the delivery deadline. Yet, he said, the then deputy did not do that and did not respond to the request until April 26.
“This ministry has never wanted to hide notes from the CPI,” he assured. “I reiterate the categorical denial of the allegations.”
And he reinforced: “The only strange thing here is why someone who says he has notes on April 24 takes 24 hours to deliver them”.
Galamba said he is considering “having all the prerequisites to be in this government”, but admitted the decision “depends on the Prime Minister’s assessment and will”.
Regarding the fact that the SIS (Security Information Service) was called to recover the computer owned by Frederico Pinheiro, João Galamba said that the first authority called was the PSP, after the attacks on two members of his cabinet. Subsequently, and since the computer in question contained a “large collection of classified documents”, the situation was passed on to the SIS and the judicial police, which are “the entities dealing with data protection and cybersecurity”.
Galamba said he had previously made contacts with the government: “I called the Prime Minister, who did not answer, I believe he was driving, I called the Prime Minister’s Deputy Secretary of State, to whom I reported this fact [o alegado furto do computador] and that I told me to talk to the Attorney General, which I did, and they told me to report these facts to those two entities [SIS e PJ]said the minister, who declined to comment on what happened next, namely the legality of the SIS intervention – “The competent authorities did what they thought they had to do”.
The minister also expressed his solidarity with the elements of the ministry that were the target of a “barbaric aggression”.
Source: DN
