Bloco de Esquerda denies any negotiations with the government to buy STT shares

This Wednesday, BE denied that it had held any negotiations with the previous PS government to buy STT shares “in exchange for a vote on the 2021 state budget,” criticizing the SDP and Chegu.

“It is clearly false, absolutely false, that BE negotiated any purchases of minority shares in CTT with the PS government in exchange for a vote on the 2021 state budget,” parliamentary leader of the blockers Pedro Filipe Soares said in a statement. parliament, considering that “the spread of this insinuation, this lie, makes no sense, since it does not correspond to reality.”

This is news from Economic Journal according to which the previous government, without disclosing it, instructed Parpública to buy the shares of CTT on the orders of the then Minister of Finance João Leão. This newspaper wrote that “the purchase occurred after BE’s demands” to approve the State budget for 2021.

Pedro Filipe Soares criticized the PSD, but especially Chega, for the statements they made on this matter, saying that “it is publicly known that among Chega’s financiers there are members of the Champalimaud family, current shareholders of STT”, and accusing the party led by Andre Ventura of “spreading false information for the purpose of obtaining political dividends and even dividends for these private shareholders.”

Regarding BE’s position on CTT, he reiterated that the party always publicly defends that it should be a “national company owned by the state, with fully public participation” and said he “condemned the decapitalization of the company by private individuals and the violation of concessions” .

“To start there and say that we will agree to a minority purchase of a company in the dead of night is really not knowing either BE’s position or what we are advocating for the benefit of the company that does not benefit the private sector. for the harm that was caused to the company, which is what the government did,” he said.

The leader of the parliamentary bloc emphasized that BE “does not owe anything to anyone, and in this matter, the one who hints at a lie must prove it.”

The STTs were privatized between 2013 and 2014 by the PSD/CDS-PP government during the period of external financial assistance from Portugal.

Chega and the Liberal Initiative have scheduled debates for Wednesday and Thursday in the Assembly of the Republic to seek clarification on the purchase of CTT shares by Parpública, while the PSD has demanded that the financial arrangements for the purchase of CTT shares be provided. The three parties sought clarification from PS Secretary General Pedro Nuno Santos.