In the parliamentary committee on economy, where he is being heard about the audit of the privatization of ANA – Aeroportos de Portugal, José Tavares made a point of clarifying in his initial intervention that what was recently disclosed in the media about the Court of Auditors’ evaluation of Efacec was not the audit report, but the “auditors’ report for contradictory”.
As he explained, this is a phase of the audit process where the auditors’ report is sent to various entities for their input, and it was at this stage that “someone improperly disclosed” this document to the media.
The audit report with the final conclusions must be approved by the judge counselors, he said, adding that this “will be available in 15 days or a month, at the moment it doesn’t exist”.
Observador reported in early September that the ongoing audit at the Court of Auditors – requested by the Assembly of the Republic when the company, since sold (by the PS Government) to the German Mutuares, was still owned by the State – indicates that public financial support to Efacec may exceed 500 million euros and that, although the State may still recover a large part, for now the nationalization has failed to meet its objectives.
According to the preliminary audit documentation, which Observador says has already gone through the contradictory phase, public financing of 484 million euros was quantified up to the privatization, completed in October 2023, but this could still increase by 80 million and reach 564 million euros, due to the contingent liabilities assumed by Parpública in the sale to Mutares.