The president of the Liberal Initiative on Thursday believed that the “heart of democracy” was called into question by the SIS’s performance in recovering former deputy minister João Galamba’s computer and accused the prime minister of exhausting credibility.
“Portuguese democracy was severely attacked during this process”, supported Rui Rocha, in statements to journalists, during a contact with users of the Metropolitano de Lisboa at Cais do Sodré station, when he commented on the hearings of Frederico Pinheiro, the deputy dismissed by telephone by the Minister of Infrastructure, and the João Galamba’s chief of staff, Eugénia Correia, on Wednesday at the TAP Commission of Inquiry.
For the liberal leader: “SIS does not exist to protect secrets or commercial information, SIS exists to protect state information”.
“TAP information, however relevant, is not state information,” he defended, concluding that “the heart of democracy, which has to do with information services, is completely questioned” with the implementation of “secret”.
Commenting on Wednesday’s hearings in the TAP Commission of Inquiry, Rui Rocha pointed to a “scenario of absolute deterioration of institutional conditions, namely in the Ministry of Infrastructure” with “lack of state sense and sense of responsibility”.
“To come to this conclusion, it is not even necessary to believe Frederico Pinheiro’s version,” he stated, noting that hearing the chief of staff also enabled one to “understand three or four things that are clearly are: when the situation is some embarrassment for the ministry or for minister João Galamba, the version… you can’t believe it”.
Rui Rocha stated that “João Galamba sent away his deputy in the car, but the head of staff was next to him, she doesn’t know, she didn’t hear, she didn’t pay attention to what he said”.
“The video surveillance cameras are present in the Ministry of Infrastructure, but on the fourth floor, where the violence scenes took place, they were not working,” he continued.
“Nothing that happens that could endanger the Ministry of Infrastructure appears in a clean version: he does not know, he was not attentive, the cameras were off, the cell phone was the object of intervention and everything was erased.. ,” he summed up.
Another “absolutely unacceptable situation” concerns what he called “a kidnapping at the Ministry of Infrastructure”. argued the president of the Liberals, stating that it is not even necessary to believe Frederico Pinheiro’s version.
Rui Rocha concluded that “Portugal has no conditions for João Galamba to continue” – “a minister who fires an aide and threatens to hit him twice, what is this?” -, but also aimed batteries at the CEO, António Costa.
“Secretaries of State change, ministers change, but the Prime Minister is the same. This Prime Minister is completely defeated by the circumstances, he has nothing to offer the country,” he insisted, concluding: “From the institutional point of view, António Costa has nothing to give the country , he is completely exhausted in his credibility”.
Source: DN
