Barney over Portugal’s public accounts persists
Billions of euros were left out of the PS government’s budget, Portugal’s finance minister Joaquim Miranda Sarmento has again insisted – telling a conference that almost a billion in expenses were approved AFTER the election result in March (in which PS Socialists lost!)
PS Socialists have countered that they want an urgent hearing of Miranda Sarmento to see his figures.
In the meantime, the allegations are there for all to read: after he resigned as Prime Minister, António Costa approved more than €1 billion euros (€1,080,000) in extraordinary spending that wasn’t in this year’s budget.
“Of these, €960 million were already after the legislative elections,” Miranda Sarmento told the Association of Specialised Credit Institutions, adding that equally, following the prime minister’s resignation, the government (in the form of the Council of Ministers) approved measures (not included in the State Budget) coming to €1.2 billion, plus there was a decision to make use of €240 million from the provisional reserve.
Putting all these decisions together, “we are talking about €2.5 billion” in additional spending decreed by the PS executive, arguably at junctures that are not on solid ground.
“In January there was a surplus – in public accounts – of €1.2 billion, and in March (after the elections in which PS Socialists lost) a deficit of €300,” said Miranda Sarmento, adding that “between January and March the debt to suppliers increased by almost 300 million. If these payments had been made, the deficit would have been 600 million euros.
“The previous government was neither clear nor transparent about the country’s budgetary situation and approved a series of spending measures and commitments that were not in the budget and that worsen the public accounts”, he added – pointing out that the use of provisional reserve money is something that does not normally happen before the summer.
As reports have stressed, this is not the first – or second – time that Joaquim Miranda Sarmento has complained that his predecessor Fernando Medina’s Finance portfolio left public accounts “much worse than the government had wanted to announce as a great budget result”.
Going through the previous government’s measures, AD claims €16 million that should have been paid out in the 2023 State Budget will now have to be included in the 2024 State Budget (the one the new executive is working with).
PS Socialists are fuming: “These statements are jeopardising the country’s external credibility, which has taken so long to recover … this is unacceptable,” said an official source.
Source material: Jornal de Negócios
