Minister pointed out that the letter in question was not “very clear about the expenses that would be required.”
The Minister of Foreign Affairs, João Gomes Cravinho, rejected this Tuesday any tacit authorization to increase costs with works at the Belém Military Hospital, reiterating that he has not received any request to that effect.
In a hearing in the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee, the social-democratic deputy Paula Cardoso questioned the minister – who oversaw defense between 2018 and 2022 – about the letter reported in the latest edition of Expresso, dated March 2020, in which Gomes Cravinho was informed of the slippage in the cost of the works in the former Military Hospital of Belém, claiming that the minister, by not saying anything, gave his tacit authorization to the increase in spending.
“Under no circumstances can one imagine that this is a request for authorization, under no circumstances can one imagine that by saying nothing, it is tacitly approved,” replied João Gomes Cravinho.
The foreign minister pointed out that “what you need when you make a request is to clearly identify” the values.
“It’s not saying ‘this is going to cost more than we thought, we think it’s going to cost another amount and maybe other amounts later we’ll see.’ This is not a request for authorization,” he said.
The governor stated that “when a request for authorization is made in a regime of exception or not, the requirements are to have a commitment, an identification of the source of funding, a commitment associated with the commitment.”
Cravinho pointed out that the letter in question was not “very clear in relation to the expenses that would be required.
Moments earlier, PSD deputy João Montenegro had argued that the Foreign Minister has lost the conditions to stay in office.
“What I see is a lot of boastfulness, but in concrete terms nothing. A lot of insinuations, a lot of statements, but in concrete terms? You omitted information,’ but you want to make it concrete? I’d like to hear it,” Gomes Cravinho countered.
