PSD President Luís Montenegro revealed this Friday that he called the Prime Minister, António Costa, yesterday morning, a conversation in which he defended the replacement of the Secretary General of the Information System of the Portuguese Republic (SIRP). “The problem is very serious and cannot be ignored,” he said at a press conference at PSD headquarters in Porto. For the leader of the Social Democrats, Infrastructure Minister João Galamba “should really be fired”.
He referred to the “rocambolesque episode at the Ministry of Infrastructure” and said that “we have reached the limit of suspecting members of services of coercion, while the government has taken over the use of the information system and information services as normal in situations apparently have no legal cover”.
Regarding the prime minister, “who heard about the SIS steps, which were suggested by his own office, it is also up to him to take on responsibilities,” said Montenegro, defend that Costa is solely responsible for the situation and state that the PSD will not oppose Costa’s trip to the TAP parliamentary inquiry committee, which IL and Chega have already requested.
And one day after hearing João Galamba in the parliamentary committee of inquiry, Luís Montenegro has no doubts:
“The country has looked with amazement at the most discrediting and depressing institutional degradation that Portugal recalls,” Montenegro said. “For the sake of the morality of politics, minister João Galamba should actually be fired,” defended the PSD chairman.
“A solid and ambitious political alternative to replace the government as soon as possible”
The leader of the Social Democrats said the prime minister should not hide in “his international or leisure agenda if his house is on fire”. It should be noted that António Costa was at the Coldplay concert, at Estádio Cidade de Coimbra, at the same time Galamba is responding to deputies in parliament.
For Montenegro, “time has proven that the stubbornness of the prime minister, arrogantly installed in his absolute majority, has contributed to the discrediting of the government, politics and the state”.
PSD leader says the “political quagmire into which Portugal has plunged is the sole responsibility of the PS, the government and the prime minister”.
“I want to reiterate that we are increasingly focused on providing the country with a political, solid and ambitious alternative to replace the government as soon as possible,” Montenegro supposed, referring to the fact that the “government destroys the dignity of public powers , with the complicity and sympathy of the Prime Minister”.
Montenegro guaranteed that it is “increasingly committed to giving the country a new government”.
“Portugal cannot be this mess, and now only a new government and a new majority can restore normality in Portugal,” concluded the PSD leader, accusing Costa of “whistling aside”.
According to Montenegro, the head of government is “busy with his international agenda and it does not give the country the answer” that Portugal “claims”.
He defended that “the country is tired of this mess” and that it is necessary “to put order in the house”.
Asked about the possibility of early elections, Montenegro said: “More and more it is the Portuguese who decide, not to change the government, it is necessary to change the government”.
Regarding Galamba’s hearing, the PSD chairman spoke in a “a minister who constantly updates his version of the facts” and who “does not take his responsibility”.
João Galamba, remember, stated at the parliamentary hearing that the person who told him on April 26 to contact the information services was the Prime Minister’s Deputy Secretary of State, António Mendonça Mendes.
Galamba also added that as early as 1 a.m. on the morning of April 27, he reported the events in the ministry to the Prime Minister, António Costa, telling him “that he was connected to the SIS”, a phone call that went on for hours after a first contact attempt in which the CEO did not answer.
The case is related to the resignation of Frederico Pinheiro, that same evening, and concerns complaints against the former assistant for physical assault at the Ministry of Infrastructure and the alleged theft of a laptop computer, a matter under investigation by the Public Prosecution Service.
Updated
Source: DN
