Just the latest political ‘clearout’ as Portugal’s AD government prepares for return to parliament
Portugal’s AD centre-right government has decided to remove the entire board of Parpública, led by José Realinho de Matos, the Ministry of Finance confirmed to Lusa today, as the decision was relayed to Mr de Matos himself.
According to Jornal de Negócios, the reasoning given has been that the administration has been “more reactive than preventive” as well as failing to provide the ministry with timely information.
The Ministry of Finance has confirmed this to Lusa, but did not provide any further details regarding the sacking of the board of the company that manages Portuguese State holdings.
Parpública manages various public holdings in companies such as TAP and industrial supplies company Inapa (currently in insolvency proceedings).
In the case of Inapa, the finance ministry said it only found out about the ‘critical situation’ on July 11 (when shares were suspended) and that it was then that it called Parpública, which explained that Inapa had requested an injection of €12 million for immediate cash needs when it already had a request for €15 million for restructuring…)
The funding was eventually rejected, and the company went ahead with insolvency proceedings, with Inapa’s executive committee stating earlier this month that ‘it was never possible’ to solve the company’s capitalisation due to the unwillingness of the largest shareholder, Parpública, with whom it had made more than 50 contacts to recapitalise and restructure, all of them failing.
This is just the latest dismissal by this government of either a board, or head of a public entity. And as such former minister of interior administration during the Socialist years, José Luís Carneiro has accused the government of ‘cleaning out’ the top jobs of State.
Mr Carneiro thus joins other voices in condemning the government for what Socialists see as unpicking all their ‘fine policies and decisions’. He has been talking to Diário de Notícias, saying that as far as he is concerned, the last government did everything it could in the area of immigration (another dubious claim considering the legendary backlog of cases inherited by the agency of asylum and migrations, and the appalling level of homelessness and precarity suffered by many migrants). But coming as this soundbite does just before the ‘end of the summer holidays’ and a return to parliamentary business, it is quite clear that an air of relaxed bonhomie will not be reigning between the political parties when they face each other again in September.
Meantime, the government has wasted no time in naming the replacement board, and explaining that, in future, it will be looking for a far more technical approach from Parpública, to pave the way towards a “new strategic cycle”.
Source material: LUSA/ SIC Notícias/ Jornal de Negócios
