With Rui Machete, who just yesterday took over the functions of Minister of Foreign Affairs, there are at least three members of the Government over whom there are suspicions of at least objectionable behavior, before entering the executive branch.
The first was Franquelim Alves, Secretary of State for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, who had connections to the same SLN and BPN to which Rui Machete was also connected and with management functions.
Then it was the case of the Secretary of State, now Minister of Finance, Maria Luís Albuquerque, who has been singled out as one of those responsible for the ruinous SWAP contracts. The minister has already denied having been aware of these contracts, but just this week, before the Parliamentary Commission investigating the case, two former finance officials said that Maria Luís knew what was going on.
As for Rui Machete, he was president for several years of the Superior Council of Sociedade Lusa de Negócios (SLN), the owner of Banco Português de Negócios (BPN), in which the Portuguese State invested in non-repayment around 4 billion euros , to avoid bankruptcy.
In his capacity as president of the Luso-American Foundation at the time, Rui Machete was linked to Banco Privado Português (BPP), where he was also a member of the Advisory Board, and where he acquired around 3% of the shares, an investment that FLAD ended up losing when the bank declared bankruptcy.
After these three nominations that could only be expected to be controversial, I am led to think that either Prime Minister Passos Coelho is very distracted, or there is no one capable in the country without glass roofs who can be appointed to these positions of high responsibility…or, quite simply, Passos Coelho is marimbando himself for what the Portuguese may think…
The most ridiculous thing about this is that, both in the case of Franquelim Alves and now in that of Rui Machete, the official résumés sent by the prime minister's own office to the media omitted these relevant positions.
It is thus a kind of hidden cat with its tail hanging out, which can only indicate a bad conscience of the Government and its prime minister. If that were not so, if there was nothing to hide, then these relevant positions in the SLN, BPN and BPP should feature in official biographies.
But if the idea was really not to raise the hare and thus hope that no one in the newspapers remembered what these gentlemen and lady were doing before they joined the Government, Passos Coelho must be very naive…or worse yet…
Nobody gets out of my mind that these appointments are just another example of the immense arrogance and contempt of this Government and its Prime Minister for the Portuguese who, despite everything, elected them. And for the other Portuguese too!
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