IL President (Assembly of the Republic) Rui Rocha said today that the report of the TAP inquiry commission should include that “there was political interference”, “lies”, “incompetence” and that the State cannot “have its hand in public companies”.
“In the country of António Costa [prime minister], scrutiny is done lightly, the reports do not serve to describe what happened in the TAP inquiry committee, they serve to describe what António Costa would like to have happened,” criticized Rui Rocha, listing the points that a report written by IL would include.
Speaking at the closing of the IL parliamentary days, which took place in Funchal, the party leader began by stressing that “obviously in this report it would be that there was political interference”, supporting this position with a set of episodes such as the secret meetings between the former CEO of TAP, Christine Ourmières-Widener, and PS deputies or the request to change a flight to “please the President of the Republic” by the Government.
“And a Liberal Initiative report on this matter would also say that throughout this commission of inquiry and the TAP management process there has been lying and a lack of transparency,” he added.
Rui Rocha pointed out that, on the subject of transparency, a report prepared by IL would include “the investment of €3.2 billion [injected] into TAP with the money of the Portuguese”.
“And obviously we would also have an assessment of competence or lack thereof there. We had meddling, we had lying and lack of transparency and obviously we had incompetence”, he considered.
In addition to these points, the IL leader stressed that “the big conclusion” that should be included in a “fair report” is that “the state cannot have its hand in public companies” because it is “not capable” of “managing them well”.
In his speech, Rui Rocha also argued that the IL parliamentary group is “champion of the scrutiny of António Costa’s government”, considering that this action of the party has made the Prime Minister and the Minister of Culture, Adão e Silva, angry.
Regarding Pedro Adão e Silva, who criticized the functioning of the TAP inquiry commission, the president of IL considered it an “irony” and “enormous lack of shame” on the part of the minister, who, as a political commentator, made “a systematic, repeated whitewashing, over the years, of José Sócrates”.
“And so this person, who is now a minister, is the same person who, after having made this type of recurring commentator, of systematic whitewashing of what was the evidence of what José Sócrates and his management was, now comes to criticize commentators,” he said.
“And when the Minister of Culture comes to talk about the B-series film genre, it must also be said that he is completely wrong. B-series movies were known to be low-budget movies. He is talking about TAP, TAP is not a low budget movie, it is a movie that cost 3.2 billion,” he added.
In a speech lasting about 40 minutes, Rui Rocha also highlighted a number of problems in the country, including the sustainability of Social Security, high taxes and difficulties in accessing housing.
The president of IL also rejected the idea that the party is “waiting for a ticket to come to power”, but expressed his conviction that it will be “an alternative that will transform the country”.
