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The new president of the Court of Accounts is referred to in the survey of Public Private Associations (PPP) as very close to the former Secretary of State of José Sócrates, Paulo Campos – one of the main suspects in that case where losses of approximately 3,500 million euros for the State, an alleged practice of corruption and other criminal offenses.
Who attests to this proximity is the Judicial Police (PJ), which intercepted several emails exchanged between the former Secretary of State of Socrates and Jose Tavares, then director general of the Court of Accounts, in 2009 and 2010. In addition to the fact that Tavares has sent a copy of the contradictory to an audit report of the court from his personal email to Campos, the PJ emphasizes that there is a close proximity between the two , Observed when consulting the records of the PPP survey.
One of the crucial elements of this investigation is a 2012 audit by the Court of Accounts which determined that contracts reformed to circumvent the Court’s visa denial when José Sócrates was Prime Minister in 2009 were illegal. , according to the entity promoting the contracts, Estradas de Portugal (currently Infrastructures of Portugal), with the collaboration of elements of the Court of Accounts itself, in addition to the Government of that time.
José Tavares even participated in secret meetings with the Government of José Sócrates to try to circumvent the initiative that the advisory judges of the Court of Accounts made on almost all the road sub-concession contracts launched by the then minister Mario Lino and Paulo Campos. One of these meetings would have even taken place on a Saturday in the Presidency of the Council of Ministers, where the then minister Mário Lino, Paulo Campos and José Tavares, then director general of the Court of Accounts, were present.
This participation is confirmed in the criminal investigation and in the testimony of the former president of Estradas de Portugal. Marquis of Almerindo, then president of the entity that launched the bids for road sub-concessions) said even in the records of the PPP survey that it was after these meetings that he received instructions on how to obtain the necessary visa for public spending, which happened in 2010. And He added that he had received instructions (he did not identify from whom) to destroy the documents with those indications.
PPP survey. Almerindo Marques revealed an order to destroy papers to the Public Ministry in 2013
In the parliamentary investigation committee of APP, in 2012, the former director had testified about the involvement of José Tavares in the solution that made it possible to overcome the impasse created by the refusal of the Court of Accounts to grant a visa to several road concession contracts in 2009 ”. The reformed contract was carried out by the services of Estradas de Portugal ponto final. There is no difficulty in realizing this. There was, in fact, a way to go, there were procedures to be adopted and, for that, when necessary, Mr. Dr. Tavares gave directions: “Look, there is the approach to do this.
The solution found was the signing of parallel contracts with the financing banks that provided contingent payments to the private sector, which in certain circumstances replenished the amounts set in the first contracts and which did not have the prior approval of the Court of Auditors. These parallel contracts were later considered illegal in an audit by the same Court of Accounts, a central piece in the investigation of the Public Ministry that has already led to the constitution of defendants among the former ministers and secretaries of State of the Government of José Sócrates.
José Tavares was appointed this Tuesday by the Presidency of the Republic as successor to Vítor Caldeira before the Court of Accounts. The appointment came from Prime Minister António Costa and was accepted by President Marcelo Rebelo de Sousa. This happened after, in an unprecedented decision, the former president of the Court of Auditors was not re-elected. The replacement is known after a very critical opinion of the institution to the changes that the Government wants to make to the public procurement regime to facilitate the execution of contracts. The Court warns that the actions increase the risks of corruption and collusion in state contracts.
The PPP investigation has been under investigation since 2012 and investigates suspicions of corruption, economic involvement in business, disruptive management, aggravated fraud, influence peddling, tax fraud, money laundering and criminal association. After seven years of investigations, the PJ concluded that the State was harmed by more than 3,500 million euros due to decisions made by the Government of Socrates.
Only at the beginning of this year will the former ministers Mário Lino and Fernando Teixeira dos Santos have been indicted. Paulo Campos confirmed to the Observer in March that he was called but did not want to clarify in what capacity. Since the beginning of the investigations, Campos has faced one of the main suspects in the case. Although the Court of Accounts played a relevant role in the investigated case, José Tavares is not considered a suspect, nor is Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins, former Minister of the PS and then president of the Court of Accounts.
The PJ’s siege of the former rulers of Socrates in the investigation of the PPPs. Costs could rise 3.5 billion
The great subject of the investigated case is precisely a point in which José Tavares and Guilherme d’Oliveira Martins played a fundamental role: the renegotiation of the PPP contracts that the advisers of the Court of Accounts had failed.
Explaining the situation. One of the topics investigated in the APP survey is related to the sub-concession contracts that were awarded by the Government of José Sócrates between 2007 and 2009. The tenders for seven sub-concessions were launched at a time of pre-crisis, but their award was made in the financial storm that followed the fall of the US bank Lehman Brothers in September 2008, which caused the financial costs of these projects to skyrocket. Practically all the proposals that have passed from the 1st phase to the so-called phase best and last offer (BAFO) suffered price increases, due to increased costs charged by financiers.
