… and forges ahead with speeding-up mining licensing procedures
The new centre-right government has dismissed yet another appointment from the last administration (often termed ‘Socialist boys’, as these positions are seen as ‘jobs-for-the-boys’ postings).
This time it is Jerónimo Cunha, the director general of the DGEG – the entity that decides on energy projects (including mining projects) – and a former ‘deputy’ of former infrastructures minister João Galamba.
Mr Cunha has been in the position for 11 months, and was dismissed with immediate effect according to a dispatch published today in government gazette Diário da República.
Environment minister Maria da Graça Carvalho justifies the decision with “the need to give a new dynamic to the services of DGEG, as well as the implementation of new guidelines for the management of this general directorate, in order to achieve an effective improvement in the implementation of policies to be pursued in the fields of energy and geological and mining resources namely by making its actions more effective and efficient in responding to the implementation of the financing programmes whose competence it is entrusted with, as well as speeding up licensing procedures”.
The dispatch states that Mr Cunha has been “heard in advance about the reasons given by the government for his dismissal”.
This is just the latest in what opposition parties have described as a major political clearout by this government, which began almost as soon as it took office.
