The appointment of a new undersecretary of state for agriculture is “soon” and “obviously” coming, the agriculture secretary explained in an interview that he needed to “think” the choice with the prime minister.
“Obviously yes, we are going to offer this [ao secretário de Estado] soon and will be made public as soon as it proves suitable,” said the Minister of Agriculture and Food, Maria do Seu Antunes, in an interview with Antena1, which will be broadcast on Sunday.
The minister’s statements came after an amendment to the government organization was published on Friday that no longer included the minister of agriculture and the minister was only assisted by the minister of fisheries, a change that led farmers’ representatives to condemn the disappearance of the secretariat.
However, the government rejected this interpretation, arguing that it was rather a reflection of the composition of the executive branch, which since January 5, after the resignation of Carla Alves, due to the lack of “political and personal conditions” to start performing functions after the announcement of the seizure of joint bank accounts with her husband, she has more there is no secretary.
“We will soon have an appointment (…) We are considering this, the Prime Minister and I, and will announce in due time who will perform this function,” the minister said, specifying that the option is to make a choice of position and deny that that there was any disappearance of the secretary of state.
The Minister stressed that the government “needs the necessary and sufficient time” to make this choice, which it will “soon” do, but it needs “the necessary time to complete” the current deliberations.
When asked if the absence of the Minister of Agriculture after the resignation of Carla Alves meant that it was difficult for the government to find people who could cope with this task, she replied: “No, on the contrary. is quite capable of taking on these functions.
After Secretary of State Maria do Seu Antunes refused the invitation, she clarified: “I have no rejected invitations, I have no invitations. As I said, we are in a period of reflection, and soon we will have a meeting that we will make public (. . .) We will implement in due time.
The minister confirmed what was announced on Friday at a press conference for this purpose by Secretary of State for the Presidency of the Council of Ministers André Mos Caldas that “there is a misinterpretation” that is being made of the Decree-Law published on Friday changing the structure of the executive.
This decree law “touches the mirror of the government”, the minister said, emphasizing that it will not disappear and announcing that “as soon as a new or new minister of agriculture takes office, this decree law should be corrected from the new”.
The same position was defended the day before by André Mos Caldas, who justified this amendment to the Organic Law on Government as “a matter of a purely formal and procedural nature” and declared that “reflection on the composition” of the executive was carried out in agriculture.
Author: Portuguese
Source: CM Jornal
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