The Foreign Minister said this Wednesday that the first information about the “real cost of the work” at the Belen military hospital did not reach the Ministry of Defense “because it exceeded the maximum size of reports” received later.
“The first information I get about the real cost of the work comes from a letter that my chief of staff was in copy, dated June 23, 2020, albeit with unsystematized and little substantiated information. This letter appears to have been sent to Alberto Coelho [diretor-geral de Recursos da Defesa] April 20, but it did not reach the recipients because it exceeded the message size limit and therefore was rejected by the server, ”Gómez Cravinho specified.
The official, who led the defense between 2018 and 2022, is being heard in parliament this Wednesday as part of the hearings requested by the PSD, during which he reconstructed the chronology of events and detailed some information about the Belen ex-military conversion process. A hospital that originally cost €750,000 and ended up costing €3.2 million.
Cravinho recalled the context of the 2020 pandemic, stressing that the purpose of the support center in Belem was to create beds for non-urgent patients, and that his dispatch of March 19 of that year stated that “the number [das obras] should be the minimum necessary to achieve the goal.
“It was also natural, given the context, that I insisted via e-mail that this process be a priority and move forward at full speed, which is never without full compliance with all legal obligations in terms of public procurement,” he stressed.
A government official stressed that on March 27, “the DG report on the situation mentioned the possibility of strengthening the valence and characteristics of the Hospital de Belen, taking into account the additional work requested by the army.”
“It’s good to be clear right away that these additional works need to have proper screening, (…) proper budget, allocation of funds and proper authorization.” [Seguro Sanches] that we give our consent to these additional works – neither tacitly nor directly, ”he stressed.
As for political responsibility, Cravigno fired: “When there is political, administrative responsibility, what the law requires follows.”
On April 14, 2020, he continued, the General Directorate of Defense Resources “closed work” on the hospital “without providing any financial information,” and in “the next three months, the Minister of Defense [Jorge Seguro Sanches] Tried to get information on costs and procedures.”
It was at this time that Cravigno claims that the first information he received about the “real cost of the work” came “from a letter dated June 23, 2020, albeit with unsystematized and little substantiated information.”
“This official letter was apparently sent to Alberto Coelho on April 20, but it did not reach the recipients because it exceeded the message size limit and was therefore rejected by the server,” he noted.
Only two months later, he said, “and after repeated requests for information, the document was sent back” to the minister’s office and the secretary of state. “All this is properly supported by the documentation submitted in the process,” he said.
Following steps taken by Seguro Sánchez on July 22, Cravinho said he received an order “stating that the CEO had improper authorization and procedures” and that he offered to send the information to IGDN, which he did.
“The original cost estimate was extremely high, up to three times without the tutelage of me or Secretary of State Seguro Sanchez, who were even briefed. Obviously, guardianship did not give permission for such an increase in expenses,” they concluded.
At the interrogation stage, the PSD confronted the minister with the fact that he came to parliament in February 2021 and at that time was already aware of the results of the inspection by the General Defense Inspectorate, which reported “legal inconsistencies” and did not appeal to the deputies.
“Not only did I have it, but I already sent it to the Accounts Chamber. As you well know, our time is limited, it is impossible to tell everything, if you asked me about any IGDN report, it is clear that I would talk to him,” he replied.
Social Democrat Jorge Paulo Oliveira pressed the issue and the minister replied that “it makes no sense to try to skip a completely public procedure”.
Chega leader Andre Ventura also asked Cravigno what he did when he received the March 27 letter stating the increase in the cost of the work, with the official stressing that the information in the letter was not “completely surprising given the circumstances in which they lived”.
The Minister said that during this period, 657 Covid-19 patients passed through the military hospital.
Regarding the future of the facilities, the Minister of Defense stated that “administrative procedures are currently being carried out for their transfer to the General Staff of the Armed Forces” and “assessment of possible functional usefulness within the framework of the military sanitary service for those installations.”
The secretary of state said he had already reaffirmed the orientation that the hospital-related budget “should be returned to the Defense Infrastructure Act projects” and asked the General Directorate of Resources for a “schedule” for the procedure.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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