Chega urgently wants to hear the finance minister in parliament about stopping the sale of the E-series savings bonds, the party leader announced, accusing the government of “enormous subservience to the banking system”.
Speaking to journalists at Chega’s national headquarters in Lisbon, André Ventura believed that the end of E-series savings certificate sales and their replacement by the F-series, with a lower interest rate, was not “just coincidence”. “.
This decision, Chega’s leader said, comes after Banco CTT president João Moreira Rato “said and appealed to the government to suspend the issuance of savings bonds” and at a time when “since January of this year, about 2.5 billion euros left the banks, practically as much as the savings bonds.”
“This is not just a concession to the bank, it is a huge subordination to the banking system,” he charged.
Ventura states that the end of the E-series savings bonds, which went into effect today, “will limit the income of many families” when there is a “brutal rise” in inflation, the cost of living and mortgage lending.
Chega’s leader expected his party to approve the PCP’s request to hear the Treasury Secretary on the matter, but believed it could not stop there.
“Fernando Medina is the person most responsible for the Ministry of Finance and it is he who must explain to the Portuguese why there was such a drastic change and so relevant to the lives and savings of the Portuguese,” he insisted.
Ventura announced that as soon as Chega will file a request to urgently hear Fernando Medina in parliament, as well as Treasury and Public Debt Management Agency (IGCP) president Miguel Martin, as he is “politically and technically” more connected to it are the intolerable situation of limitation” of savings certificates.
Enough questioning the Ombudsman
In addition to this request, Chega’s president said that his party also questioned today through the Assembly of the Republic of Fernando Medina about the conditions under which banks can market savings bonds.
Among the questions addressed, Ventura referred that the The party wants to know “how much will the banks earn from the sale of savings bonds” and whether or not “there will be a commission for the brokerage of these financial products”.
If so, Chega’s leader said, that is not “only submission to the wishes of the bank”, but also an “unlawful favor to the bank”, which would “benefit from its own savings bonds and commissions on the matter would receive”. “.
Ventura added that he has doubts about the legality of the government’s decision, particularly due to the “relatively arbitrary nature of amendments, suspensions, changes to fees, time limits and warranties”, and also announced that Chega will today appeal to the Justice Ombudsman , Maria Lúcia Amaral, questioned , on the matter.
“It is true that it is a regulation, and it is true that it is a legitimate decision from an organic and formal point of view, but it is (…) necessary to understand whether we are facing a mere concession to the bank , or an interference in the market without any political basis,” he said.
Ventura also stated that he endorses the words of the President of the Republic – who asked for a “little effort” from the banks – as banks “should do more and better on this matter”.
Source: DN
