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The name is José Tavares, until now he was general director of the Court of Accounts, but he has just been appointed the new president of the organization. Moreover, José Tavares was, at this time and inherently, president of the Board of Directors of the Court of Accounts and head of the office of the still president of the TC, the one now dismissed by António Costa Vitor Caldeira.
The prime minister brought the name to the president of the Republic at the end of this Tuesday afternoon, trying not to escalate the controversy over the unexpected replacement. Being a solution of continuity, as the president wanted, Marcelo accepted.
Continuity is the keyword. The nominee is not only part of the house, but he has worked at the TC since February 1995. For fifteen years, another sensitive function has been added to him at this political moment: José Tavares is “member and secretary general of the Council for the Prevention of Corruption, inherent in the position of Director General of the Court of Accounts “. Corruption is, remember, the sensitive word that puts in the last opinion of the TC a government law, the one that tries to speed up public investments. The floor was registered in the opinion and has already led the Government to promise a withdrawal. In the October 5 speech, Marcelo himself came out alert with the same words. Attaching a warning about the sensitivity of the diploma that is being debated in Parliament.
It was the confluence of the two news items – that of the negative opinion of the Government’s law and that of the convocation of António Costa dismissing Vitor Caldeira – that opened a controversy, later exploited by the opposition, who sought the angle of. This Tuesday morning, António Costa made public to explain the exchange: anchored in Marcelo, he said that it had been decided that there would be no renewed mandates, “not even for the sake of independence” of the person in charge. And he made it clear that, until there was a successor, it would be the vice president of the TC who would assume the position. Costa never referred to the multiple controversies with the government that marked Caldeira’s mandate, nor to the way he was dismissed: by phone.
Marcelo, to Expresso, said a few hours later that Vitor Caldeira deserved a good grade (“He was a great president of the TC, I praised him several times”). But he pointed the way he wanted for the institution that supervises many accounts of the Portuguese State: within “the same line”, “with exactly the same degree of demand.”
With a meeting scheduled in Belém for that same afternoon, at the Higher National Defense Council, Marcelo hoped that Costa would provide him with that profile. And Costa took it custom. The approval followed without further words on the website of the Presidency. It is not a reference to the nominee’s curriculum.
