The PSD secretary general on Tuesday urged the prime minister to rehabilitate the infrastructure minister “by the end of the day” given that Joao Galamba was proven to have lied to parliament and the country after hearing António Mendonça Mendez.
“We had the Assistant Secretary of State to the Prime Minister who said that Minister Joao Galamba is a liar and lied to the country and the parliamentary commission of inquiry. Today the PSD says that the prime minister must by the end of the day, rehabilitate the minister Joao Galamba, otherwise he is also a joke prime minister,” Hugo Soares said in a statement to journalists at the door of the PSD parliamentary group in the Assembly of the Republic.
Asked whether the SDP would allow the creation of a commission of inquiry into the activities of the information services if this dismissal did not take place, the SDP Secretary General postponed the issue for another day.
“The rest is in time,” he said without answering further questions.
In a statement, Hugo Soares accused the prime minister of being “an accomplice to this lie from day one”, calling the situation “mud and quagmire”.
“I remember that the prime minister decided to enter into an institutional conflict with the president of the republic in order to keep a minister in the government who shamelessly lied to the country and the deputies,” he criticized.
The prime minister’s deputy secretary of state confirmed on Tuesday that he spoke with minister Joao Galamba on the night of April 26, but denied any causal link between that phone call and a report to information services about a computer taken from the Ministry of Infrastructure.
“No, the message to the republican information services, to the republican information system was not the result of any proposal, any indication or any indication on my part or on the part of any member of the government. be,” said António Mendonsa Mendez.
Shortly after the end of this parliamentary hearing in the Commission on Constitutional Affairs, Hugo Soares considered that “it was quite clear” that this secretary of state “denied what Minister João Galamba had said to the deputies in the parliamentary commission of inquiry, and thus to the Portuguese” .
“It is unclear whether it took the Secretary of State 39 days to refute what he said. Did he tell the prime minister that the minister was lying when he said it was him. [Mendonça Mendes] who suggested that Joao Galamba contact the secret services?” he asked.
Last week, the SDP general secretary already concluded that Joao Galamba was lying, after the party analyzed the prime minister’s responses to the Social Democrats’ inquiry.
On this occasion, Hugo Soares left doubts about the usefulness of a parliamentary inquiry in these conditions, but said he would wait for the hearing in the Mendonza Mendez case, which took place on Tuesday.
“If we have ministers lying in a parliamentary commission of inquiry with the consent of the prime minister, we doubt its usefulness if ministers continue to lie,” he said at the time.
On that day, the leader of the Social Democrats also accused the government of allegedly “interested in the continuation of this soap opera”: “It sincerely seems that the government deliberately tells the country vaguely and truthfully, because, this soap opera continues, there is real life ”, he added.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
I’m Sandra Hansen, a news website Author and Reporter for 24 News Reporters. I have over 7 years of experience in the journalism field, with an extensive background in politics and political science. My passion is to tell stories that are important to people around the globe and to engage readers with compelling content.