Five (further) ministers are obliged to declare their client lists, the services they provided and their company’s bank accounts (or those of their husband/ wife).
This is the result of the recent ruling by the Constitutional Court on the ‘legal tussle’ between the country’s Entity for Transparency (EpT) and the prime minister, Luís Montenegro.
In ‘refusing to give up’, the EpT has, in effect, seen the Constitutional Court ruling extend to all other similar cases involving politicians and high-ranking civil servants.
To start with, this means that minister of labour and social solidarity – Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, minister of the economy and territorial cohesion – Manuel Castro Almeida, minister of parliamentary affairs – Carlos Abreu Amorim, minister of Justice – Rita Alarcão Júdice, and minister of defence – Nuno Melo, must all fall in line and deliver information that they have this far not delivered.
Writing in Correio da Manhã today, deputy editorial director Eduardo Dâmaso calls it an “historic decision” which has “created a new democratic paradigm of scrutiny and transparency”.
The EpT, and its president Ana Raquel Moniz, have performed “an enormous service to democracy and to this country”, considers Dâmaso – citing examples of the past where rules were constantly changed to suit holders of high public or political office.
As to the five ministers, there appears to be a great deal to unpack. Maria do Rosário Palma Ramalho, for example, holds 95% of the share capital of Palma Ramalho Lda, writes CM’s reporter António Sérgio Azenha – and, according to a declaration that she delivered to EpT last summer, this position was suspended, only there is no mention of this on the Justice Portal, he says.
Economy minister Castro Almeida is a shareholder in two companies: Castro Almeida Consultores, Unipessoal, Lda – where he holds 100% of the shares – and Venture Atlantic, where he holds only 6.7%. The first offers services to businesses and other organisations. The second “acts in the area of technology and is based in Estonia”.
Justice minister Rita Alarcão Júdice is a shareholder/ partner in 11 companies involved in advocacy, real estate, tourism, hospitality and agriculture.
Carlos Abreu Amorim is involved in only one business, providing legal consultancy and training services to businesses; and Nuno Melo, through his wife, has connection to two businesses in the ‘area of health’.
None of these activities, per se, mean anything if the people involved were not members of the government. This is why the level of scrutiny and transparency ‘demanded’ by the EpT has been so tenacious: it is doing exactly what it was created to do (finally*).
*The law paving the way for the EpT was passed in 2019 following a proposal by the Bloco de Esquerda (Left Bloc), supported by the PSD and PS Socialists – but it took three years before the entity even had provisional offices.
In November 2022, Expresso carried an article explaining what the obstacles were (these were largely thrown up by the Constitutional Court which initially argued that the ‘conditions’ for establishing the entity did not exist. Later the problems were structural: there was no space for offices in the court’s building in Lisbon due to renovation work…)
Pretty quickly after Expresso’s article (the same month, in fact) a provisional location was found, in Coimbra, and the entity was finally able to start its work, which is to “assess and monitor the declarations of income, assets and interests of public office holders and politicians, with the range of office holders required to submit such declarations having been expanded”.
Source material: Correio da Manhã/ Expresso/ NoticiasdeCoimbra
