This Friday, National Defense Minister Elena Carreiras and former portfolio holder João Gomes Cravinho will be heard in parliament over a controversy involving former ruler Marco Capitao Ferreira, accused of Operation Perfect Storm.
The hearing on the request of PSD and Chega is scheduled for 15:00 in the Parliamentary Defense Committee and will take place exactly two weeks after Marco Capitan Ferreira resigned as Secretary of State for Defense.
On this day, the ex-governor became a defendant in Operation Perfect Storm, suspected of corruption crimes and economic participation in business, as well as the object of searches, which also took place at the facilities of the General Directorate of National Defense Resources.
Marco Capitan Ferreira took up the position of Secretary of State for National Defense in March 2022, upon the inauguration of the current government, and prior to that he was Chairman of the Board of Directors of idD Portugal Defense, the holding company that manages public stakes in defense companies, a position he took up in 2020 and was appointed by Gomes Cravinho.
On July 12, the Minister of Defense sent a letter to the Chairman of the Court of Accounts requesting a financial review of idD Portugal Defense, and on Tuesday evening on CNN Portugal, Helena Carreiras also announced a new review of the DG Defense Resources Advisory Services.
Parliament this week approved, with PS abstaining, PSD’s request for an additional audit by the Court of Accounts of idD – Portugal Defense’s contracting and acquisition processes between 2020 and 2022.
The lawyer, who was involved in several controversies before taking office in the socialist majority executive, was even called to a pre-resignation hearing in parliament, which he did not attend, citing his condition in the process.
Among the public cases that MPs want to hear from Carreiras and Gomes Cravinho is a consultancy contract signed in 2019 between the former secretary of state and the Directorate General of National Defense Resources (DGRDN), which at the time was led by Alberto Coelho, one of the participants in the Perfect Storm legal operation, whose name is associated with the backlog of expenses in the re-qualification of the former Belen military hospital.
The contract for consulting services under the revision of contracts for the maintenance of EH-101 helicopters for a period of 60 days and at a cost of 50,000 euros plus VAT (61,500 euros) was signed on March 25, 2019, and the services were completed four days later, on March 29 of the same year.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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